Superfund 365 – Toxic Data Visualization

September 5, 2007 in datasets, geo by Tracey | 1 comment

Very cool! Albeit in flash and some ui issues when trying to see the map, the legend and there is no way to link to the docs or access explanations associated with the timeline at the bottom but very interesting to see an attempt at making this kind of toxic data accessible!

Superfund365, A Site-A-Day, is an online data visualization application with an accompanying RSS-feed and email alert system. Each day for a year, starting on September 1, 2007, Superfund365 will visit one toxic site currently active in the Superfund program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We begin the journey in the New York City area and work our way across the country, ending the year in Hawaii. (We will need a beach vacation by then!) In the end, the archive will consist of 365 visualizations of some of the worst toxic sites in the U.S., roughly a quarter of the total number on the Superfund’s National Priorities List (NPL). Along the way, we will conduct video interviews with people involved with or impacted by Superfund.

Superfund365

I wish I could find more Canadian examples!

US reduces spending on economic census

September 4, 2007 in Uncategorized by Tracey | Permalink

A NYTimes Editorial What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You, discusses the real cost of not having information and the politics of the US Census.

Just before the break, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would cut $23.6 million from the bureau’s 2008 budget for compiling the nation’s most important economic statistics. A cut of that size would result in the largest loss of source data since the government started keeping the statistics during the Great Depression, impairing the accuracy of figures on economic growth, consumer spending, corporate profits, labor productivity, inflation and other benchmark indicators.

MoveMyData.org

September 3, 2007 in projects, tools, web by Hugh | Permalink

This is a bit off-topic, but spiritually related to the mission of datalibre.ca … MoveMyData.org. From the “about”:

Your content and data should be yours to manage and do with as you please. Your images, writing, tags, profile, blog entries, comments, testimonials, video, and music should be yours to download and move anyplace you want.

We will help ensure that no website ever holds your data hostage.

[link…]

I have not played with it yet, but I love the idea.

Real time data from the Hudson

August 31, 2007 in Uncategorized by Tracey | Permalink

Imagine the Ottawa River Keeper having access to this type of data! Or for the folks along the St-Laurent Sea Way! How wonderful for citizens to be able to view a 3D model of their rivers and their conditions at any time of day!

This is exactly what is going on along the Hudson where IBM and the Beacon Institute, a nonprofit scientific-research organization in NY are collaborating on the development of the River and Estuary Observatory Network (REON) which is a

distributed-processing hardware and analytical software, the system designed to take heterogeneous data from a variety of sources and make sense of it in real time. The software learns to recognize data patterns and trends and prioritizes useful data. If some data stream begins to exhibit even minor variations, the system automatically redirects resources toward it. The system will also be equipped with IBM’s visualization technologies; fed with mapping data, they can create a virtual model of the river and simulate its ecosystem in real time.

The type of data that will be gathered from sensor reports are

temperature, pressure, salinity, dissolved oxygen content, and pH levels, which will indicate whether pollutants have entered the river. Other sensors will be directed toward sea life, says Nierzwicki-Bauer, and will be used to study species and determine how communities of microscopic organisms change over time.

It is expected there will be many hundreds of sensor required for this project that will rely on fibre optic cables and wireless technologies. Eventually the system will be connected to Ocean sensor and monitoring networks.

REON

Ah! Nice to see some exciting data collecting activities!

Via:
Networking the Hudson River: The Hudson could become the world’s largest environmental-monitoring system. By Brittany Sauser.

udell & greg elin of sunlight foundation

August 27, 2007 in government, projects by Hugh | Permalink

Jon Udell interviews Greg Elin, chief info architect of the Sunlight Foundation, which aims to make the operation of Congress and the U.S. government more transparent and accountable. It’s interesting to follow this debate in the USA – where government data and reports are de facto public domain, though true access is a different story, compared with Canada where government data is often covered by restrictive copyright provisions (starting with Crown Copyright). Says Udell about the talk:

Having surveyed a wide range of government data sources, Greg’s conclusion is that the future is already here, but not yet evenly distributed. There are pockets within the government where data management practices are excellent, and large swaths where they are mediocre to horrible. The Sunlight Foundation has an interesting take on how to bootstrap better data practices across the board. By demonstrating them externally, in compelling ways, you can incent the government to internalize them:

Some of that can be said here, but we are behind the curve, having a big hurdle to get over just convincing the Canadian government that the proved wisdom of US government data policy is compelling: making government data available spurs innovation. Restricting it restricts innovation.

See the Interviews with Innovators page, on IT Conversations.

Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators

August 25, 2007 in canada, datasets, geo, government by Tracey | Permalink

Check out the Statistics Canada Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators report.

It discusses three main indicators:

Air quality indicator tracks Canadians’ exposure to ground-level ozone—a key component of smog and one of the most common and harmful air pollutants to which people are exposed.

The greenhouse gas emissions indicator tracks the annual releases of the six greenhouse gases that are the major contributors to climate change. The indicator comes directly from the greenhouse gas inventory report prepared by Environment Canada for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.

The freshwater quality indicator reports the status of surface water quality at selected monitoring sites across the country. For this first report, the focus of the indicator is on the protection of aquatic life, such as plants, invertebrates and fish.

The report also has some links in the references to some of the data used to build these indicators. Also check out the methodology section to get the low down on how to use these data. Perhaps some data and ideas to play with!

But now that we know that

the three indicators reported here raise concerns for Canada’s environmental sustainability, the health and well-being of Canadians, and our economic performance. The trends for air quality and greenhouse gas emissions are pointing to greater threats to human health and the planet’s climate. The water quality results show that guidelines are being exceeded, at least occasionally, at most of the selected monitoring sites across the country.

What do we do?

Malamud & Case Law

August 24, 2007 in datasets, projects by Hugh | Permalink

From O’Reilly Radar:

Carl Malamud has this funny idea that public domain information ought to be… well, public. He has a history of creating public access databases on the net when the provider of the data has failed to do so or has licensed its data only to a private company that provides it only for pay. His technique is to build a high-profile demonstration project with the intent of getting the actual holder of the public domain information (usually a government agency) to take over the job.

Carl’s done this in the past with the SEC’s Edgar database, with the Smithsonian, and with Congressional hearings. But now, he’s set his eyes on the crown jewels of public data available for profit: the body of Federal case law that is the foundation of multi-billion dollar businesses such as WestLaw.

In a site that just went live tonight, Carl has begun publishing the full text of legal opinions, starting back in 1880, and outlined a process that will eventually lead to a full database of US Case law. Carl writes:

1. The short-term goal is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of the Federal Reporter, the Federal Supplement, and the Federal Appendix.
2. The medium-term goal is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of all state and federal cases and codes.

Link to the database.

GeoData Alliance

August 10, 2007 in geo, projects by Hugh | Permalink

The GeoData Alliance is a nonprofit organization open to all individuals and institutions committed to using geographic information to improve the health of our communities, our economies, and the Earth.

The purpose of the GeoData Alliance is to foster trusted and inclusive processes to enable the creation, effective and equitable flow, and beneficial use of geographic information.

[more…]

free at last: ontario postal codes

August 9, 2007 in datasets, government by Hugh | 1 comment

Good news: Elections Ontario makes the postal code/electoral riding data file available:

The Postal Codes by Electoral Districts (ED) file provides a link between the six-character postal code and Ontario’s new provincial electoral districts. It is a zip file containing three files that can be loaded and used in spreadsheets and databases. The first is a text file with the ED names; the second file contains the postal codes that have been assigned to a single ED; and the third file contains postal codes that have been found in multiple EDs. This third files repeats the postal code for each ED in which it is found.

Have not looked at it yet: any comments about formats/license etc?

(from the civicaccess.ca mailing list).

Tele Atlas is mapping Toronto’s Streets in 3d

August 9, 2007 in canada, datasets, infrastructure, Uncategorized by Tracey | 1 comment

This CBC.ca video gives a brief on how 2d and 3d street view data are collected. In this case it is the city of Toronto and the data collector is Tele Atlas. The things cartographers do to make maps! Tele Atlas seems to be selling georeferenced landmarks, street networks, and a variety of other data it collects simply by driving the streets with cameras and GPS mounted on the roof of cars. At 500 km a day and terrabytes of data, these folks are collecting and selling tons of geo-information that we like to play with on google earth, help find places in mapquest, and allow city planners or police forces to prepare evacuation plans, understand the characteristics of the route planned for a protest or know the point address in a 911 call.

The video also briefly discusses privacy issues, seems like the street is public space and if you happen to be naughty going into some taudry establishment and your act happens to be caught on film, well, so be it, either behave or accept the digital consequences of your private acts in public space, or so the video suggests!

Regarding access to these data, well, my guess is a big price tag. It is a private company after all!

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