Assessing the Urban Environment: The Role of Geographic Information Systems as a Policy Making Tool for Urban Sustainability

As urban population growth accelerates and the impacts of climate change continue to make their presence felt, there is an urgent need to integrate sustainability into urban policies to counter increases in urban ecological footprints and negative impacts on citizens\u27 lives. The use of geographic information systems (GIS) is a necessary assessment tool to measure urban sustainability and ensure that quantitative, place-based information is available to decision-makers. From the analysis of literature and case studies, it is evident that assessment methodologies utilizing GIS are in development through public and private research, but that they still need to be passed from researchers into the hands of planners and policy-makers so that they can be utilized for creating sustainable urban policies