17 February 2009 Git4You.com:

Hi-tech computer modelling is being employed to map walking routes around Britain’s cities for award-winning website www.walkit.com. Using accurate terrain data captured from the air, the height models from aerial mapping company Bluesky are being used to produce walking routes that avoid the steepest hills and alert walkers to inclines on their selected journey, information that is especially useful for those carrying loads, pushing buggies and those with certain health conditions.

walkit.com has been named “one of the 100 top sites for the year ahead” by the Guardian newspaper and ranked in the 101 most useful websites by Telegraph.co.uk and in the top 50 best London websites by TimeOut. Visitors to the site can select from one of 12 cities across the UK, including London, Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham and Sheffield, and simply enter their walk’s start and end points. Additional user options include selection of route type, for example, direct or less busy. walkit.com then returns a detailed walking route including a map of the route and full written directions together with distance, walking times and calories burned for slow, medium and fast walking paces and even an estimation of the CO2 avoided.

12 February 2009, Git4You.com:

ESRI, the Environmental Systems Research Institute, provides first responders across the United States and around the world with GIS (geographic information system) modeling and mapping hardware and software to help them in planning for, responding to, and recovering from structure fires, wildfires and other natural disasters. ESRI's ArcGIS system collects data about an area's topography, such as vegetation, power poles, natural resources, and building developments, and can provide fire departments with the information they need to plan for, mitigate, and respond to these emergencies in the safest and most effective ways.

ESRI's ArcGIS system can be used in wildfire applications in various ways. For wildfire prevention, it can analyze vegetation for flammability, slope steepness, historical fire occurrences, and the proximity of housing developments to determine where high risk areas are located. This gives planners and decision makers the information they need to try to prevent this type of natural disaster. When a wildfire does occur, ArcGIS uses several technologies, such as GPS, AVL, Computer-aided Dispatch (CAD), remote sensing, aerial photography, modeling, and wireless data communication to predict fire behavior and assist firefighters in forming a plan of attack to fight the wildfire. According to Russ Johnson of ESRI's Fire Management Division, "When a fire occurs we can bring GIS in to begin to predict, based upon weather conditions and vegetation fuel moisture, where that fire is going to go, where we're going to need to place our resources and where we need to think about stopping that fire before it gets into areas that will do unacceptable damage and result in unacceptable losses."