Curated climate data and insights for future planning.
Climate change is forecast to increase the intensity and frequency of extreme weather across our planet. Fiercer, more frequent storms means there’s a greater risk of the places we depend on for shelter, food and resources getting damaged. Communities and companies need to make long-term decisions on how to make our infrastructure more resilient to changing weather patterns. But to make those choices, they need data.
We belong to a partnership that’s making climate data easier to access, analyse and use. Led by World Resources Institute and Future Earth, the Partnership for Resilience and Preparedness (PREP) has been listening to user feedback since the online platform launched in 2016 and using it to identify which datasets and features are most needed. Using this information we’ve designed an experience that guides people towards the data they need most, allowing them to understand what impacts climate change will have on their community or business.
To aid users in the exploration and selection of datasets, we created a hierarchy that establishes the breadth of available data. Split into three key areas; climate, exposure, and vulnerability, the datasets are gradually introduced using a design technique known as progressive disclosure. Each one has been specifically selected for the platform and users can request additional datasets for inclusion or upload their own data to their workspace.
Just as the impacts of climate change vary, so too do the ways people prefer to visualise data. PREP offers a choice of ways to view and analyse data, none of which require technical knowledge or skills. It’s rare to find a platform that lets you view 10 indicators on one map, examine their differences and select any point in the world to query. But that’s what PREP offers—access to 15 terabytes of data without the hassle that comes with downloading.
Innovation as standard
Data is delivered to the platform using the Resource Watch API.
Graphic visualisations are created using Vega and can be customised and embedded.
PREP is open source and the code is available in Github.
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