Greening From the Rooftops

Description: A user interface for mapping the green roof potential of NYC.

Goal: Green roofs are a proven solution to the urban consequences of climate change. Where are the current green roofs located, and how does the potential for green roofs look like in NYC? What ecological impacts would green roofs have?

Data:

• The Nature Conservancy and Azavea Suitability Analysis
• The Nature Conservancy Current Green Roofs
• Open Data NYC Building Footprint
• NYC Planning Pluto Tax Lot

Data Collection: The data from The Nature Conservancy was in the form of shapefiles. First, I needed to convert them into MBTiles in order to upload the geometries into the map using Mapbox. Mapboc was used instead of leaflet in order to enhance performance spead. MongoDB was used to store nonrelational data regarding the roof height, area, borough, building class, and land use category. The data in Mapbox and the data in MongoDB were both connected using a unique identifier. The benefits calculations were done in the front end javascript. They are based on calculations done in pervious studies— please see thesis for further detail.

Audience: Policy makers, urban planners, NGOs, and homeowners.

For the live project, please click here. For detailed documentation, please click here.