GeoGreen Mapper – An Interactive Community Green Map for Alachua County, Florida

Description
The GIS Division at the Department of Growth Management under the Board of Commissioners of Alachua County has developed GeoGreen, an Interactive Green Map for Alachua County. Green Maps are local maps which chart natural, cultural, and civic community resources in green living. With GeoGreen, Alachua County joins the global movement of over five hundred cities, towns and villages who engage in various ways of Green Mapping.

The GeoGreen Mapper provides access to over forty map layers of green infrastructure and green living and to important related countywide studies. Users can interactively create their own maps on the web picking and choosing what layers to use. Pictures, web sites, and descriptive information are all integrated with each map layer. Some of the map layers are regulatory, such as preservation lands, some map layers are user-generated, and others are updated in real time during county’s daily operations. Map layers are grouped into three categories:

 green pathways (trails, bicycle paths and facilities, low speed roads, etc.)

 conservation/recreation (preservation lands, strategic ecosystems, priority ecological areas, etc.)

 cultural/green living (farmer markets, community gardens, recycle centers, thrift stores, historic structures, etc.)

GeoGreen is also a database driven participatory web mapper. It provides for public input in registering and mapping of Green Buildings, connecting live to the Alachua County's buildings database. Anyone from the public can enter a permit number and upload an image of their Green Building Certificate. After the upload, they can immediately view Green Building location plotted live on GeoGreen. Upon validation of the certificate by county staff, the location of this Certified Green Building remains part of the Green Buildings map layer. This allows for collecting disparate data on Green Buildings, which does not exist as such anywhere.

For the first time in the history of Alachua County, GeoGreen also displays locations of Solar Panel permits issued over the years. The Solar Panel map layer updates in real time as county staff issues Solar Permits as part of their building permitting operations.

 GeoGreen is located at: http://maps.alachuacounty.us/geogreen

 The Green Buildings Interface is located at: http://cpd.alachuacounty.us/cdweb/permitting/green/

 A Green Map brochure is located at: http://maps.alachuacounty.us/geogreen/greenmapalachuacounty.pdf