As part of the Resilient Coastal Cities Project, Esri’s CityEngine will be used to simulate the potential impacts of various landscape-scale mangrove restoration scenarios in 3-dimensional space. This three-dimensional visualization will help planners better understand green infrastructure in the urban landscape. The goal is to influence city land use planning and disaster management decisions by allowing planners and decision makers to explore the relationships between mangrove restoration, built infrastructure and watershed management, as well as assess project feasibility and implementation.

This integrated resilience-disaster management approach is intended to provide a pioneering geospatial framework that can be leveraged in cities across South Asia and the globe. This work will also take advantage of TNC’s collaboration with Microsoft through their AI for Earth program and the Azure cloud, specifically in app design and delivery.

Using mangrove restoration scenario polygons and metrics developed from ecological-based coastal engineering guidelines, CityEngine procedural models can be adapted to simulate the look and impacts of mangrove restoration over time.

Phase 1

The first phase of this “NatureEngine” prototype will be piloted in the city of Semarang on the north coast of Central Java. The outcome of the project is a set of 3-D mangrove restoration scenarios and a list of feasible next steps and recommendations to advance this work as part of the Microsoft collaboration. ArcGIS 360 Virtual Reality can be leveraged to provide 3-D scenes that can be viewed from the desktop or through phones with virtual reality capabilities and post-processed CityEngine scenes will be hosted on Azure.

Phase 2

The second phase of the project, Esri will explore the potential to harness the power of the Data Science Virtual Machine (DSVM) to develop and run “NatureEngine” procedural models dynamically, importing model output directly into the evolving app and associated dashboard.

Providing virtual 3-D interpretations of mangrove restoration scenarios will provide a deeply immersive stakeholder experience that will improve their understanding of the relationships between coastal ecosystems, critical infrastructure, aquaculture assets, watershed management and city planning.  “NatureEngine” can evolve for different types of ecosystems which can be leveraged to cities around the world to allow planners to explore the multi-beneficial functions of green and hybrid green/grey infrastructure in urban planning.