Editor's Picks Archive - geojournalism.org

iSeeChange: A Social Platform for Recording Climate Change

In an effort to bring local context to climate reporting in Western Colorado, Julia Kumari Drapkin started iSeeChange–an online weather and climate journal–in 2012 to help identify how the listeners of her local community radio station were being impacted by changes in the environment. Four years later, iSeeChange is a hybrid citizen-science, social media platform used by people around the world to document and share their experience of environmental change. Using geotagged photos coupled with data on the weather and atmospheric conditions, iSeeChange is working to create a collective climate journal for present and future generations.

Using climate data to answer common questions

By comparing maximum temperatures today against predictions for 2050 and 2070, this new map helps answer a simple question with a complicated answer. As the climate changes, what is weather going feel like where I live?

Eyes on the forests: an Interview with Dr. Matthew Hansen, University of Maryland

Monitoring the state of the world’s forests is a monumental task with challenges in data collection, interpretation and display. Read our exclusive Interview with Dr Matt Hansen from University of Maryland about the power of remote sensing

Big Data and the Planetary Nervous System: An Interview with Planet OS CEO Rainer Sternfeld

Accessing useful data about the status of our planet’s environment is often a struggle. From with the variety of sources to the diversity of formats and tools out there, journalists interested in using data in their environmental reporting often spend more time finding and downloading the information than actually analyzing it. Over the past few […]

Learning by Doing: A History of the DustDuino Sensor Pilot in Sao Paulo

The MakeSense project began in early 2014 with a proposal to the Feedback Labs experiment fund, seeking to test the following hypothesis: Citizen-led sensor monitoring of environmental factors will strengthen feedback loops by providing structured, accurate, and reliable data to compare against government measurements and news stories in the Amazon basin. The funding amount of $60,000 […]

Dust in the Wind: How Data Visualization Can Help the Environment

A recent study using NASA’s CALIPSOsatellite described how wind and weather carry millions of tons of dust from the Sahara desert to the Amazon basin each year – bringing much-needed fertilizers like phosphorus to the Amazon’s depleted soils. To bring this story to life, NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization team produced a video showing the path of […]

Data Big and Small

How GeoJournalism is changing the way we understand and communicate environmental information. With so many systems out there tracking the status of the planet’s health, telling this story with vigor and imagination should be more feasible than ever.

Open Data in Asia’s Water Tower: data.thethirdpole.net

In an effort to help understand and react to the rapid changes taking place in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, Earth Journalism Network (EJN) and The Third Pole launched an open source geospatial database

Data-driven journalism project Land Quest maps drilling profits and aid in Kenya

In Kenya’s poor, dry Turkana region, recent discoveries of water and oil could change the lives of residents who depend on food aid for survival. Land Quest, a cross-border investigative journalism experiment is using data to illuminate the competing financial interests in Kenya. It maps the flow of aid money from Europe to Kenya, and the flow of profits from Kenya back to Europe.

Ekuatorial uses geographic data to cover climate change in Indonesia

Frequent flooding and critically low crop yields are just two of the warning signs of climate change in Indonesia, home to the world’s third-largest tropical rainforest and some of the highest levels of biological diversity on the globe. To shed light on these crucial issues, data journalists have launched the news site Ekuatorial, which offers the latest environmental news and engaging, easy-to-understand interactive maps of oceans, forests and natural disasters in Indonesia.

Tracking illegal poaching in South Africa

The Oxpeckers Center for Investigative Environmental Journalism is Africa’s first journalistic investigation unit focusing on environmental issues. The Center combines traditional investigative reporting with data analysis and geo-mapping tools to expose eco-offences and track organised crime syndicates in southern Africa.