Visions of a Truly Green Eugene

GIS 248 Final ProjectBy: Lindsey Mendell

OBJECTIVE

The goal behind this project was to find out:

-What buildings in downtown Eugene could potentially support a green roof.

-How much green space would be added to the city if green roofs were implemented in these locations.

1. Imported 2” resolution air photos of Eugene. Cropped out an area of interest.

2. Created a geodatabase to add my buildings, pavement, and roof types too.

3. Created new shapefiles in ArcCatalog.

4.Started digitizing buildings and existing green space.

5. Added a base layer. This serves to show existing concrete (parking lots, roads, etc.)

6. Added LCOG roads, digitized train tracks. Made the map “recognizable”.

7. Went downtown and performed visual checks on buildings to determine height, roof slope, and other qualifications. 8. Used this information to add fields in the attribute table. One of them listed the building as being potentially suitable. “Yes” or “No” were the options.

9. Selected the suitable buildings by attribute. This allowed me to know how much area they made up, and made it possible to perform area calculations.

9. For added visual aid, constructed 3-D models of my map using ArcScene. (Thanks, Bill!)

RESULTS

-Over 90% of buildings are “potentially suitable.”-If all of these buildings installed a green roof, green space

in this area would increase by 309%, or 10.75 acres. Limitations:-While most buildings can support an Extensive Roof,

closer inspections of the roofs would have to be made to know if a green roof could really be installed.

-Visual checks made at ground level. Some roof slopes are hard to see from the ground, or from photos. Errors may have occurred in gathering information.