Modeling, Monitoring, and Visualizing Carbon Footprints at the Urban Neighborhood Scale

This paper presents a novel approach for calculating the carbon footprint in an urban region at the scale of individual neighborhoods. The approach is applied to Maricopa County, Arizona, for two different scenarios of growth. Our strategy for monitoring carbon footprints also involves a new form of visualization that goes beyond the two-dimensional thematic maps and provides better representation of multidimensional spatial data. Our monitoring system includes grid-based calculation and visualization of potential carbon dioxide emissions for future years under different policy and behavioral scenarios. To calculate a total carbon footprint value, we designate several varieties of relevant emissions such as housing expenditure and electricity. We develop datasets and models that allow for accurate calculation of the carbon footprint for Maricopa County. We provide emissions information for different types of housing units and compare the results for different future scenarios of household change. Finally, we visualize the results in three-dimensional representations that take into account the multidimensional dataset. We employ an intuitive approach in constructing three-dimensional surfaces of carbon footprints using B-Splines and Bezier techniques. This 3D representation allows for understanding and comparing multidimensional data using transparency, different layers, and superimposition techniques.