Philadelphia, US: The City of Philadelphia (PA) announced that it will move forward on a plan to invest USD 2 billion over the next 25 years on green infrastructure to clean up the city’s water.
Recently, Philadelphia Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) and Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) signed an agreement that will allow the PWD to officially embark on the implementation of its innovative strategy that uses green stormwater infrastructure to substantially reduce Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) to its waterways.
According to the information available at PWD’s website, GIS is already playing a major role in this ambitious initiative. The Department is using GIS to analyse and visualise information about its watersheds. GIS software enabled users to view individual or multiple physical features as a series of stacked, two-dimensional “layers” that form accurate maps and diagrams. The capability of this software encompasses many other data analysis functions; for example, GIS can be used to trace sewer routes, find how much of a watershed area is made up of certain types of land uses, or determine which land parcels are located adjacent to creeks.
The PWD website offers a collection of map resources as screen resolution images for online viewing or high resolution PDF files suitable for printing. The website also offers an interactive mapping tool, based-on Google Maps. Individual feature layers can be turned on and off, allowing the viewer to create personalised maps and views of Philadelphia’s watersheds.
Earlier, PWD submitted the green infrastructure plan to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and PADEP in September, 2009. Green City, Clean Waters works in tandem with the Mayor’s Greenworks Philadelphia vision in order to reinvent Philadelphia as a green, sustainable city of the future.
Source: www.phillywatersheds.org
