The city, along with Trust for Public Land and the Greater New Orleans Foundation, debuted a new set of mapping tools this week to improve planning for "green infrastructure" projects in the city.
The Trust for Public Land developed the tools for New Orleans through its Climate-Smart Cities initiative. The tools have four goals, with the larger goal of combating climate change: Cool the city off, manage stormwater runoff, increase bicycle transportation, and protect against storm surge.
The tools pulls data relevant to those goals to create maps—for instance, it pulls FEMA maps to show flood-prone areas—identifying areas where environmental projects are needed. For example, the tools can locate "heat islands" in the city to help target tree plantings.
New Orleans is one of more than a dozen cities in the program.
Like it is for the city's water plan, the city has chosen the Gentilly as a model for environmental projects using the mapping tools. The tools will only initially only be available to city officials and organizers from the Trust for Public Land.
• New mapping tools to improve planning for environmental projects in New Orleans [Uptown Messenger]
• What You Need to Know About the Gentilly Resiliency District [Curbed NOLA]