By: Brynne Henn
Big data is not only big; it’s typically slow and heavy when visualizing on the map. This week Zach Levitt, an intern at the LA Times Graphics and Data Visualization Desk, set a new bar for big data visualizations. Zach worked with experts from the USGS to select 14 significant earthquake scenarios on 13 different fault lines across California out of more than 100 earthquake scenarios available for the California area.
The US Geological Survey produces hundreds of earthquake scenarios and releases them as open data for visualizations just like this. Of the roughly 30,000 miles of faults cutting across California the three faults that most seismologists focus on are the San Andreas, San Jacinto, and Hayward that the LA Times also includes. You can zoom into Dodger Stadium, TransAmerica Pyramid, Disneyland, or search your own address.
From downloading and managing shapefiles to map design principles, Zach shares how he was able to transform open data into a narrative that lets all of us be better prepared for a major disaster.
Q: This is so much data! How did the project start — what were the first few days like having to even just download this much data?
During our coverage of the July 5th Ridgecrest earthquake, LA Times reporter Rong-Gong Lin II showed the graphics team a few USGS earthquake scenarios to demonstrate some of the concepts he wanted to explain in an article. In conversations with fellow graphics staff after that meeting, the idea was raised that it would be fascinating to develop a project that could allow readers to better understand the hundreds of scenarios on the USGS website. So, we ran with the idea.
Even though there is a lot of data in the final version of the article, the USGS hosts hundreds of scenarios on their website and the initial version of the project had over 100 scenarios spanning three of California’s fastest-moving faults. Due to technical limitations and after conversations with several USGS scientists, we changed the focus to 14 significant scenarios on nearly as many faults. While the data preparation stage of this project was certainly the most tedious, I wrote some scripts that allowed us to speed up the downloading and processing steps. I also reached out to the GIS staff at USGS and they were very kind to send me some of the epicenter and rupture data pre-bundled from their site.
As a data journalists, how important is the US government’s open data for helping you and your team have access to information?
Open data from the US government is an essential tool for all journalists. Whether it is earthquake data from the USGS, voting records from local governments, climate change data from the federal government or Census data, the US government provides troves of information to the public, waiting to be analyzed. This access allows journalists to tell meaningful visual and data-driven stories that would not and could not be told otherwise.
Q: What are your go-to tools for working with big data like this?
This summer, I have been working mainly with QGIS for mapping, Python for data analysis, and JavaScript for development. In my academic work and research, I also use R extensively for data science.
Q: What role do you see data journalists have in translating big data from open government data reports into content for civil society?
As the sheer quantity of available data increases every day, I believe it is the role of data journalists to push the boundaries of traditional journalism to tell even more impactful stories. While written word-based stories will hopefully never go away, modern-day news organizations have the opportunity to leverage the unique talents of data journalists to reach broader audiences and tell new stories. Due to data journalists’ specialized training in data analysis, visualization and journalistic ethics and best practices, they are best-suited to translate large datasets for the general public. As the news world continues to change, the essential role of data journalists to our democracy will only become more apparent.
It has been an honor to work with the talented group of graphics and data journalists at the LATimes this summer. I truly cannot wait to see how they continue to expand the meaning and impact of modern data journalism.
Brynne Henn - Content Team Manager - Mapbox | LinkedIn
Earthquake and big data mapping experts: Q&A with Zach Levitt from the LA Times was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.