{"id":3119,"date":"2014-05-13T11:33:46","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T15:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/?p=3119"},"modified":"2021-07-27T13:35:29","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T17:35:29","slug":"suitability-mapper-finding-sustainable-palm-oil-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/suitability-mapper-finding-sustainable-palm-oil-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Suitability Mapper: Finding Sustainable Palm Oil Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The power of GIS as a tool to help manage our planet\u2019s natural resources is limited only by the insightfulness of our questions. Fortunately, more timely and detailed data becomes available every year, so we are free to ask an ever-wider range of questions, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In relation to agriculture, what factors affect our ability to sustainably produce crops, and how do these factors change across the landscape?<\/li>\n<li>Where should agriculture expand, and where should it retract?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commodities.globalforestwatch.org\/#v=map&amp;lyrs=suit&amp;x=108.15&amp;y=0.88&amp;l=6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3133 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/WRI_SM01.png\" alt=\"Suitability Map inside GFW Commodities\" width=\"640\" height=\"521\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blue Raster<\/a>, along with partners <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wri.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">World Resources Institute<\/a> (WRI) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sekala.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sekala<\/a>, has developed an interactive web application allowing users to customize criteria for sustainable agriculture and find sites for sustainable palm oil across Indonesia.<\/p>\n<p>Upon entering the <a href=\"http:\/\/commodities.globalforestwatch.org\/#v=map&amp;lyrs=suit&amp;x=108.15&amp;y=0.88&amp;l=6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Suitability Mapper<\/a>, users visualize various layers superimposed on the Indonesian landscape including elevation, hill slope, rainfall, and soil acidity. WRI provides a two-color layer showing the distribution of areas deemed &#8220;potentially suitable&#8221; (purple) and &#8220;unsuitable&#8221; (yellow) for sustainable palm oil production.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wri.org\/applications\/maps\/suitability-mapper\/#v=suitability\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3144 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/WRI_SM02b.png\" alt=\"suitability layers\" width=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Taking analysis a step further, the user can adjust the criteria for this suitability layer by adjusting controls linked to each palm oil variable. In the screenshot below, I have adjusted the suitability analysis to increase the mandatory distance from conservation areas and water resources. With my custom analysis complete, I can use drawing tools to summarize the results for a specific area. Results include the area&#8217;s legal status, amount of suitable area, distance from nearby roads, legal status, and whether an oil palm concession already exists in the location.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commodities.globalforestwatch.org\/#v=map&amp;lyrs=suit&amp;x=108.15&amp;y=0.88&amp;l=6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3147 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/WRI_SM03b.png\" alt=\"Suitability Map inside GFW Commodities\" width=\"640\" height=\"517\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Suitability Mapper was built on top of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Esri<\/a>\u2019s ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS API for JavaScript. Using the <a title=\"ArcGIS Image Extension for Server\" href=\"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/software\/arcgis\/serverimage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ArcGIS Image Extension for Server<\/a>, we are able to analyze and compute accurate suitability maps in realtime based on user-supplied criteria. Instead of investing large amounts of time in software development and maintenance, we were able to use the out-of-the-box features of Esri\u2019s Image Extension for ArcGIS Server to achieve the goals of the project.\u00a0This platform \u00a0will also make it easier to add more and better data as it becomes available, to continually improve our analysis, inform key stakeholders, and make better decisions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><a title=\"WRI Suitability Mapper - built by Blue Raster\" href=\"http:\/\/commodities.globalforestwatch.org\/#v=map&amp;lyrs=suit&amp;x=108.15&amp;y=0.88&amp;l=6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Suitability Mapper<\/a> is part of the <a title=\"Global Forest Watch\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wri.org\/our-work\/project\/global-forest-watch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Global Forest Watch<\/a> platform which has many new features coming soon with the launch of its Commodities analysis tool. \u00a0Stay tuned for more information and launch dates soon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The power of GIS as a tool to help manage our planet\u2019s natural resources is limited only by the insightfulness of our questions. Fortunately, more timely and detailed data becomes available every year, so we are free to ask an ever-wider range of questions, such as: In relation to agriculture, what factors affect our ability [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[363,3074],"tags":[72,304,305,306,307,258,125,126],"acf":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueraster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}