Welcome


Ahoy Mateys! I be talking like a pirate because I use the scientific programming language R to solve environmental problems, and I want to get you hooked on data science!

I invite you to explore these applications. A bit of background is provided for each, but the real point is to try it out!

Please let me () know if you have any problems, questions or suggestions.

This site can be difficult to interact with on a phone, so a desktop browser is recommended.

By the way, here’s a bit more about me and my company:

Monitor ship speeds to avoid whale strikes


Background. In the fall of 2007, five blue whale fatalities in the Santa Barbara Channel were presumed to be caused by commercial vessel strikes. Whale Advisory Zones were seasonally established during presence of the endangered blue whales in the area to advise commercial vessels to reduce their speed to 10 knots or below. Various outreach campaigns are underway to change vessel behavior, and compliance can be tracked by monitoring ship locations through their location transmitted via the Automatic Identification System (AIS) mandated for vessel safety for all ships greater than 300 tons. These report cards are under development to facilitate this process.

Try it out. From the directory of ships, sort on different columns (e.g. pct_dist_ok for percent distance travelled at safe speeds) and click on a ship’s name to view its report card. In the map zoom into areas in exceedence of the advisory. Click back to the Directory in the top menu. Notice different color codings based on pct_dist_ok.

Route ships around whale hotspots


Background. With the possibility of an oil pipeline terminal being installed at Port Kittimat, oil tankers would transit the inner waters of British Columbia for the first time since the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Aggregating marine mammal density surfaces (Best et al, 2015) into a single cost surface, this least-cost routing algorithm provides alternative ship routes to avoid marine mammal hotspots.

Try it out. Click on different points along the tradeoff curve to display the corresponding route in the map. Note the routes in the upper left are straighter (i.e. less wildlife aware) than the tortuous paths in the lower right (i.e. wildlife avoidant).

Site offshore wind energy responsibly


Background. Development of offshore wind energy promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but siting and construction of these offshore structures needs be done in an environmentally responsible manner. Seabirds can collide or be displaced during the long-term operation of wind turbines. Cetaceans are most effected by the acoustic impact of pile driving during construction. Using existing seabird densities and recently estimated cetacean density surfaces (Roberts, Best et al 2016), this decision framework maps the overall utility of wind profitability versus bird sensitivity. Clicking on any given pixel in the map pops up the cetacean sensitivity over the year for that site, thus highlighting the optimal month of the year to pile drive.

Try it out. Hover your cursor just above the tradeoff plot to see the menu of tools, click on the lasso tool and select optimal sites in the upper right quadrant of the plot (draw while click and holding). For the now highlighted pixels on the map, click on one of the pixels to determine the best month to pile drive based on endangered whales and dolphins being least present.

Calculate ocean health globally


Background. The Ocean Health Index (OHI) quantifies sustainable use of the oceans globally across 10 broad goals (Halpern, …, Best et al 2012). This application helps users visualize the many levels of information as maps, goals as petals in the flower plot, time series and tables.

Try it out. Click on a country to freeze the flower plot to that country in the upper right and explore the country goal scores in the flower plot.

Use infographics to report on ecosystem status


Background. Species and habitats have complex interactions with each other, the environment and humans. Communicating the state of ecosystem can be facilitated by infographics describing elements as silhouettes, which can be clicked on to pop up a time series of abundance. Similar infographics are being developed for the National Marine Sanctuaries and Integrated Ecosystem Assessement regions.

Try it out. Click on different species to see time series of outputs.

Dive deeper with resources

Rmarkdown reports:

Shiny applications:


Background. Here are short videos about a couple tools for creating applications and generating reports or websites like seen here. These open data science tools have been demonstrated to produce better science in less time (Lowndes, Best et al 2017).

Try it out. After some initial training, these tools are surprisingly easy and fun to use! Here’s more resources for you to dive into: