Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps
As web maps are now extensively used by billions of users, the energy consumption of these maps is not marginal anymore. Green cartography seeks to reduce the energy consumption of maps to promote more sustainable digital tools. To reduce energy consumption, we first need to better understand the di...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2025-03-01
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| Series: | ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/14/3/107 |
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| author | Guillaume Touya Azelle Courtial Jérémy Kalsron Justin Berli Bérénice Le Mao Laura Wenclik |
| author_facet | Guillaume Touya Azelle Courtial Jérémy Kalsron Justin Berli Bérénice Le Mao Laura Wenclik |
| author_sort | Guillaume Touya |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | As web maps are now extensively used by billions of users, the energy consumption of these maps is not marginal anymore. Green cartography seeks to reduce the energy consumption of maps to promote more sustainable digital tools. To reduce energy consumption, we first need to better understand the different sources of energy consumption for web maps. Among these sources, this paper focuses on the tiles that are stored on servers and then constantly transferred each time a user explores the map. This paper presents several experiments carried out with current web maps to assess this energy consumption. We first try to assess the number of map tiles that are loaded through the web when users explore web maps, and we determine which types of interaction are used with the maps, and a similar amount of tiles is loaded. Then, we try to assess which zoom levels are the most loaded by users; it appears that the medium–large scales are the most used (between zoom levels 11 and 17). Then, we explore the size of the map tiles and try to assess which ones are larger and thus require more energy to load over the web; we can find clear differences between zoom levels. Finally, we discuss how map generalization could be used to reduce energy consumption by creating lighter tiles. These experiments show that the current web maps are suboptimal regarding energy consumption, with many tiles loaded at zoom levels where the tiles are larger than necessary. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-3379ece09d354875ab53f5c9213dbccb |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2220-9964 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information |
| spelling | doaj-art-3379ece09d354875ab53f5c9213dbccb2025-08-20T01:49:04ZengMDPI AGISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information2220-99642025-03-0114310710.3390/ijgi14030107Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web MapsGuillaume Touya0Azelle Courtial1Jérémy Kalsron2Justin Berli3Bérénice Le Mao4Laura Wenclik5LASTIG, IGN, ENSG, University Gustave Eiffel, F-77420 Champs-sur-Marne, FranceLASTIG, IGN, ENSG, University Gustave Eiffel, F-77420 Champs-sur-Marne, FranceLASTIG, IGN, ENSG, University Gustave Eiffel, F-77420 Champs-sur-Marne, FranceLASTIG, IGN, ENSG, University Gustave Eiffel, F-77420 Champs-sur-Marne, FranceLASTIG, IGN, ENSG, University Gustave Eiffel, F-77420 Champs-sur-Marne, FranceLASTIG, IGN, ENSG, University Gustave Eiffel, F-77420 Champs-sur-Marne, FranceAs web maps are now extensively used by billions of users, the energy consumption of these maps is not marginal anymore. Green cartography seeks to reduce the energy consumption of maps to promote more sustainable digital tools. To reduce energy consumption, we first need to better understand the different sources of energy consumption for web maps. Among these sources, this paper focuses on the tiles that are stored on servers and then constantly transferred each time a user explores the map. This paper presents several experiments carried out with current web maps to assess this energy consumption. We first try to assess the number of map tiles that are loaded through the web when users explore web maps, and we determine which types of interaction are used with the maps, and a similar amount of tiles is loaded. Then, we try to assess which zoom levels are the most loaded by users; it appears that the medium–large scales are the most used (between zoom levels 11 and 17). Then, we explore the size of the map tiles and try to assess which ones are larger and thus require more energy to load over the web; we can find clear differences between zoom levels. Finally, we discuss how map generalization could be used to reduce energy consumption by creating lighter tiles. These experiments show that the current web maps are suboptimal regarding energy consumption, with many tiles loaded at zoom levels where the tiles are larger than necessary.https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/14/3/107green cartographygreen computingweb mappingtilingmap generalization |
| spellingShingle | Guillaume Touya Azelle Courtial Jérémy Kalsron Justin Berli Bérénice Le Mao Laura Wenclik Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information green cartography green computing web mapping tiling map generalization |
| title | Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps |
| title_full | Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps |
| title_fullStr | Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps |
| title_full_unstemmed | Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps |
| title_short | Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps |
| title_sort | understanding the carbon footprint of tile transfer for web maps |
| topic | green cartography green computing web mapping tiling map generalization |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/14/3/107 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT guillaumetouya understandingthecarbonfootprintoftiletransferforwebmaps AT azellecourtial understandingthecarbonfootprintoftiletransferforwebmaps AT jeremykalsron understandingthecarbonfootprintoftiletransferforwebmaps AT justinberli understandingthecarbonfootprintoftiletransferforwebmaps AT berenicelemao understandingthecarbonfootprintoftiletransferforwebmaps AT laurawenclik understandingthecarbonfootprintoftiletransferforwebmaps |