Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

February 8, 2020 10:00 am

The Municipal Bond Market Is Using Geospatial Data For Climate Risk Evaluation

mikeebbbd shares a report from Los Angeles Times: The $3.8-trillion municipal-bond market has found a new tool in its effort to understand the effects of climate change: satellites orbiting Earth. Assessing climate risks is a particularly vexing problem given that U.S. state and local governments tend to give investors information that's too little or just too late. But the use of geospatial data and information from sources such as Google Earth could help municipal bond investors evaluate and price the risks posed from a warming climate, rising sea levels and natural disasters. The deployment of spatial technology in the municipal market advanced in January when credit rating company S&P Global Ratings completed an analysis of U.S. water utilities using data from NASA satellite missions. Other investment firms say they're starting to focus on geospatial information as a way to evaluate climate risks as well. [...] S&P, one of three big U.S. credit rating companies, used information from NASA satellites to examine whether the location of public water utilities had anything to do with their financial strength. They found that utilities located in ecosystems that foster better water quality, such as evergreen forests, were associated with better debt metrics. "The article goes on to describe uses that analysts make of satellite data and GIS analysis," adds Slashdot reader mikeebbbd. "Is there a risk that this could create a modern version of 'redlining?'"

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot