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Tag: Global Water

World Water Day: New ways to see WASH data on the Spatial Data Repository

New Resource in Time for World Water Day!

World Water Day is celebrated on March 22 to raise awareness of and to inspire action to tackle water and sanitation issues globally.

Blue Raster, with leadership from and in close collaboration with The DHS Program, has developed the Local Data Mapping tool, debuting today on the DHS Program Spatial Data Repository(SDR).

Just in time for World Water Day, the tool features new visualizations for four WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) indicators disaggregated to a more granular level then previously available and in both vector and raster format! Browse to the new page here: https://spatialdata.dhsprogram.com/local-data-mapping-tool/

To visualize:

  • Administrative Area Level 2 in vector format
  • Raster images at a 5 x 5 KM resolution
  • Traditional Administrative Area 1 disaggregation
World Water Day

Viewing and interacting with raster data on a map is an entirely new offering for the USAID funded DHS Program. The 5 x 5 KM raster layers are stored on Esri ArcGIS Enterprise and accessed using the ArcGIS SDK for JavaScript. Raster and vector data are processed and published using the powerful ArcGIS Pro desktop software. Blue Raster’s Bojan Zivkovic and Chris Messerich tightly integrated with Dr. Ben Mayala and Dr. Rose Donohue from the DHS Program GIS team to make sure the data and application was developed to the requirements from USAID.

World Water Day 2024

Blue Raster and The DHS Program have a successful 15 year partnership and the venerable Spatial Data Repository has served GIS data to the public for over 10 years.  We love seeing this workhorse tool getting updated and adapted to more and more uses. It's perfect for viewing water indicators for World Water Day! Visit spatialdata.dhsprogram.com today!

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Make Way for Whales (And Environmental Hope)

The Smithsonian Institution’s Ocean Initiative supports the Smithsonian’s mission to increase the public’s understanding and stewardship of the Ocean. Researchers have been working to track the migratory patterns of whales to better understand patterns and find ways to protect them. One of the biggest threats to migratory whales are collisions with ships. In the early 2000s, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) first began shifting shipping lanes to protect right whales in the Bay of Funday and Boston Harbor.

Tracking Whales

Over the last decade, researcher Hector Guzman has pioneered a satellite-positioning system to follow and track other migratory whale species in Panama, Costa Rica, and more recently Chile so that similar measures could be taken in ports in in central and South America. His work and the resulting policy changes in shipping routes has reduced the probability of whale-ship collisions in Panama by 95%.

Smithsonian Whale StoryMap

The Ocean Initiative wanted to highlight this work as part of its educational offerings to K-12 students. Dr. Guzman’s work provided a positive story about how scientific research can inform and change policy for the betterment of nature.

Make Way for the StoryMap

The Smithsonian engaged with Blue Raster to create an ArcGIS Story Map that illustrates the research and its impact in an engaging and conversational way that would connect with students. Utilizing ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS StoryMaps, the Blue Raster team built the “Make Way for Whales” StoryMap that shows how shifting shipping lanes increased the safety of whales. Additionally, the StoryMap includes:

    • Background from research papers that explains the danger shipping poses to whales and the trends impacting whale populations
    • Description of how whales are tagged and tracked
    • Details on the geographies of the coastlines studied
    • Interactive maps that show the overlay of GPS whale locations and ship traffic
    • Custom illustrations depicting Traffic Separation Schemes (TSS) being used that avoid the migratory patterns of whales
Smithsonian Whale StoryMap
Whale StoryMap images

Blue Raster used research data (compiled in spreadsheets) to build the maps and other custom graphics on the page. The resulting story shows how trade can continue to happen while being responsive to the needs of wildlife. It is an encouraging message that they hope will inspire future scientists, researchers, and environmentalists.


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