Atlas Ambiental de Lima (Peru)

Lima, Peru’s capital city and home to more than 8 million people, is experiencing uncontrolled growth at an unprecedented pace. As a result, environmental concerns have become central in the attempts to improve living conditions and direct the future development of the city. Unfortunately these attempts have been hampered by a lack of complete and concise environmental information.

The principal aim of the environmental atlas was to connect relevant organizations at national and local levels and to enable them to develop a GIS-based system to access and exchange environmental information. The atlas, both paper and digital versions, is the result of the effort of 19 public institutions in Peru that are producing and using environmental information and that are responsible for environmental policy, planning, and management in Lima. The products in the atlas have been developed by experts from these organizations working in various disciplines.

The atlas presents the first comprehensive high-quality overview of environmental information in the Lima region. It presents a wide variety of environmental themes and contains more than 100 color maps at various scales, hundreds of photos, graphics, and descriptions of the environmental phenomena in the region. The information is of great use to professionals in urban environmental planning and management, policy makers, academics, students, and the public in building the understanding of the complex environmental reality and helps them to shape the future of the city.

The Lima environmental atlas project was made possible through a donation of the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (NUFFIC).

General map design by the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC); maps courtesy of Instituto Geológico Minero y Metalurgico (INGEMMET).