Geographic Information Systems for Facilitating Audits of the Urban Built Environment

Data collection and large-scale urban audits are challenging and can be time consuming processes. Geographic information systems can extract and combine relevant data that can be used as input to calculation tools that provide results and quantify indicators with sufficient spatial analysis to facil...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 16; no. 11; p. 4309
Main Authors Balaras, Constantinos A., Theodoropoulos, Andreas I., Dascalaki, Elena G.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 24.05.2023
Subjects
Analysis
audits
Buildings
Built environment
Carbon
cities
COVID-19
Data collection
Decision making
Emissions
Energy consumption
Energy efficiency
energy performance
Geographic information systems
GIS
Information processing
Neutrality
Open data
Pandemics
Permeability
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaics
Remodeling, restoration, etc
Renovation
Smart cities
Spatial analysis
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Urban areas
Urban environments
Greece
Belgium
Netherlands
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Data collection and large-scale urban audits are challenging and can be time consuming processes. Geographic information systems can extract and combine relevant data that can be used as input to calculation tools that provide results and quantify indicators with sufficient spatial analysis to facilitate the local decision-making process for building renovations and sustainability assessment. This work presents an open-access tool that offers an automated process that can be used to audit an urban area in order to extract relevant information about the characteristics of the built environment, analyze the building characteristics to evaluate energy performance, assess the potential for the installation of photovoltaics on available building rooftops, and quantify ground permeability. A case study is also presented to demonstrate data collection and processing for an urban city block, and the relevant results are elaborated upon. The method is easily replicable and is based on open data and non-commercial tools.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en16114309