EnviroAtlas Cyanobacteria Assessment Network (CyAN) Dashboard: A Tool for Data Visualization and Exploratory Analysis
Citation:
Ignatius, A., K. Wolfe, M. Galvin, Tom Purucker, R. Parmar, JohnM Johnston, B. Schaeffer, AND A. Neale. EnviroAtlas Cyanobacteria Assessment Network (CyAN) Dashboard: A Tool for Data Visualization and Exploratory Analysis. American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, April 05 - 09, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
To be presented at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting in Boston, MA, April 5-9, 2017.
Description:
Economic, health, and environmental impacts of cyanobacteria and associated harmful algal blooms are increasingly recognized by policymakers, managers, and scientific researchers. However, spatially-distributed, long-term data on cyanobacteria blooms are largely unavailable. The multiagency Cyanobacteria Assessment Network (CyAN) project helps address this data need by providing remote-sensing derived information on the concentration of cyanobacteria in fresh water bodies of the Continental United States. CyAN provides data for >1 ,800 lakes using 300x300 meter MERIS and Sentinel-3 satellite image data processed using a second-derivative spectral-shape cyanobacteria algorithm. CyAN includes weekly information for over 200,000 km2 of surface water for 2008-2012, a breadth of spatiotemporal information unprecedented in cyanobacteria research. Online distribution and effective communication of CyAN issues are high priorities for the project and sharing these data offer exceptional opportunities for research, management, and public awareness of cyanobacteria. Challenges that these data pose for webbased data visualization include uneven sampling intervals due to cloud cover, inconsistent spatial data coverage associated with spectral interference and lake "edge effects," and widely varying lake sizes prohibiting presentation of data at the waterbody scale. We present an approach that overcomes these challenges by incorporating a variety of data visualization techniques in multiple website environments. Spatiotemporal mapping (leaflet.js, Geoplatform) and interactive data visualization (03.js) allow exploratory and explanatory presentation of historical cyanobacteria data at both pixel-level and lake scales. The interactive tools will be published on the EPA EnviroAtlas website. Interactive visualization of CyAN data promotes discovery, access, evaluation, and integration of harmful algal bloom data.
