By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG
Living Lakes Canada is testing the waters with a new data visualization tool in its Columbia Basin Water Hub. Scheduled to be released by the end of November, the tool will allow users to represent the Water Hub’s datasets in easy-to-digest graphs and charts.
The data visualization tool was created to make the hub’s resources more accessible, said Paige Thurston, Program Manager for the Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework, an initiative to track the impacts of climate change of which Living Lakes Canada is a member.
“This allows you to more easily understand the data, take a quick look at it, spot preliminary trends, as well as effectively communicate your findings with a wider audience,” Thurston told The Goat. “It’s more accessible to people without a scientific background, and helps make the data more easily support local climate adaptation efforts and informed decision-making.”
Data from the Water Hub has been used by groups ranging from local governments to researchers to community organizers to better understand how climate change is impacting Columbia Basin watersheds, and see year-over-year trends of water levels, according to Thurston. For example, the BC Wildfire Service used the hub’s fire suppression inventory – which identifies water sources that can be used by firefighters – this summer while fighting fires, Thurston said.
The Water Hub lacks data on the northern regions of the Columbia Basin, Thurston added. Local governments or researchers who have data sets they would like to share with the hub can visit data.cbwaterhub.ca and contact the hub’s researchers, at which point they will work together to reach a data sharing agreement.
“We’ve got very close relationships with all of our contributors, as well as many of our users,” Thurston said. “We’re constantly adapting the hub to meet the needs of our audience.”
