1. 5 Environmental Maps
Created with Open Data
What happens when data opens up? In some of the
best cases, smart and silly people repackage it into
strange and wonderful visuals that explain our world to
us in a new way. There are a great deal of Twitter maps
and crime maps and of course a vast array of
speculative election maps leftover from last November,
but I’ve poked all around the internet to find a list of five
maps that use open data to explore a particularly
environmental concept.

2. 1. During Hurricane Sandy,
New Yorkers were given the
power of open data in the
palm of their hands.
Evacuation zones and other
emergency information was
made available through
the city’s open data platform
so that many users could
make and disseminate their
own maps, resulting in
greater exposure.

3. 2. A better-designed parking
system means less time
circling the city looking for a
place to park. San Francisco
decided to meet their
congestion problem by varying
the charges for meters to meet
peak demand. It’s novel and
new and best of all, the city
puts out
a public API for developers to
play with for future
optimization. See all the pilot
maps here: http://sfpark
.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/RateChange8_All.
pdf

4. 3. Here are two maps of the
U.S. that tries the “good
news, bad news” approach
for environmental
recognition. To find ways that
all fifty states top and bottom
out lists related to the
environment, the
Mother Nature Network used
an impressive list of sources.
Hey there Kentuckians--sorry
to hear about your highest
cancer death rate, but at
least you have the longest
cave!

5. 4. This is not the prettiest map on this list, but the bloggers at MappingLondon.co.
uk used data from the Barclays bicycle share system and overlayed pollution data
available from the city to identify where hired cycling and pollution interact.

6. 5. If population growth and carbon footprints keep
you up at night, don’t look at these infographic-
style maps. The Per Square Mile blog shows two
important contrasts here: density and impact, in a
way that poignantly illustrates the inequity of
global lifestyles across different countries. The
data comes from the Global Footprint Network.

7. Honorable Mention: The high-speed rail system that wasn’t
While not made using open data information, the conception of how high-speed rail might look
in the U.S. by Alfred Twu, captured the longings of many rail enthusiasts and flittered around
the internet as a sad “what if”.
Can maps change minds?