This project explores how GE is reducing water consumption at its own facilities and addressing the global water crisis.

Launched as a feature on GE.com (part of a series of stories about GE innovation) it’s a GE-branded layer that works in Google Earth to showcase global sites where GE’s water-saving technologies are making an impact—from commercial buildings in Canada to the entire city of Algiers.

• The navigation of the GE.com feature was designed to mimic the functionality of Google Earth. Users can spin the globe, zoom in and out of locations and jump from story to story.

• Throughout the feature, users are prompted to download the WaterExplorer by GE layer in Google Earth, which incorporates additional stories, rich media and statistical data.

• The feature was created using Adobe Flash with ActionScript 3, while the 3-D functionality was achieved with the Papervision3D framework.

• The Google Earth layer was built using KML, a tag-based structure with nested elements and attributes and based on the XML standard. The file format is used to display geographic data in an earth browser such as Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Maps for mobile.