Milestone 1: GLAA-C Client Team. Addressing Planner and Practitioner Needs
Through a Climate Adaptation Strategies Database
February 9, 2015 Madeleine Filloux Stephanie Miller Samuel Molnar Ru Guo Pearl Zeng Intro
This document is intended to lay out a definition of problems and scope for the Climate Informatics team working with
GLAA-C. We highlight the scope and limitation of the project, the process by which the group plans to work and a comparison of existing resources with the needs identified by GLAA-C. A considerable part of the report is focused on problem definition.
Definition of Scope
● Client: The client is the Great Lakes Adaptation Assessment for Cities (GLAA-C). It is a project that collaborates with the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments, which is one of NOAA Regional Integrated Science and Assessments. The potential audience is GLAA-C and GLISA’s community of municipal planners and urban stakeholder who are doing work around climate adaptation, mainly regional partners and urban decision makers.
(http://graham.umich.edu/glaac)
● Capabilities: It allows you to find climate change adaptation strategies based on real case studies and adaptation plans. The adaptation strategies tool has received lots of positive feedback from existing users who were involved with the development of the tool.
● Limitations:
○ The database is a module that is a part of the overall CIAT tool but is not readily transportable to other websites. The CIAT tool itself is a mess of python coding, the author of which is gone now and so editing CIAT has become very difficult, thus the need to move the database to other environments.
○ It is based on a large csv file and cannot be linked to other websites. ○ It is hard to maintain and update the content.
Group Work Process
The CIAT project team first met to discuss our individual understanding of the project as presented to the Climate Informatics class. We formed a list of questions, then met with the client contacts to clarify
our understanding of their concerns and their initial ideas for implementation. We are individually and as a group researching potential resources and implementation ideas. (See List of Resources). We have set up a project distribution list ([email protected]) and Google Drive folder to streamline communication (both within the team and between the team and client contacts) and centralize project documentation.
List of Resources
This section will highlight similar informatics tools and websites that the client directed us to review. These tools are similar to what we are trying to produce but fall short of the goals of GLAA-C’s
database project. These tools are critiqued in this section to provide a framework for the goals of the tool we are creating.
The first is the toolkit.climate.gov website. It focuses mainly on informatics tools that planners may use. It has a smaller case studies and strategies section that is more similar to what we are trying to do with the database. The case studies within the website are comprehensive and sufficiently brief so that they are useable. However, there are only about a dozen case studies, which is far short of the number that practitioners need to get a broad picture of the strategies available to them.
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions has a map-based database of adaptation plans that can be queried by clicking on cities listed on the map. This tool has similar lack of a large number of case studies that the toolkit.climate.gov website does. It also lacks discussion of specific strategies used, and highlights the mere creation of adaptation plans. It links the user to an outside website where they may peruse the adaptation plan on their own.
The Georgetown Climate Center has a map-based adaptation database. It has considerable size listing ~50 different cities. The map is slightly buggy, and sometimes returns no results when you query a city. It does a great job of showing progress and has a clear “report card” and “progress bar” for each city. Similar to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions the case studies are very short broad summaries and link to external websites for more information.
CakeX is a well-known website with a very large number of user-submitted case studies. It is probably the best out of the the tools listed here. It is searchable, users are able to submit their own information, and the case studies tend to be brief (although a full survey is not possible) and to the point. It is strategy focused which is key. CakeX is not modular though, which is a major goal of the tool we are creating for GLAA-C. Users must navigate to the CakeX website and it cannot be embedded within other web-based tools. CakeX is also not city-focused and is intended towards a much broader audience than the tool we create is intended to reach.
Definition of Problems
Our clients identified several problems that our group will be addressing: 1. Not Stand-Alone
The Adaptation Strategies database is currently entangled in the overall CIAT tool (see figure 1). Due to the complicated programming of the CIAT tool, this component is not easily extracted, making it difficult to port it to other websites. Our clients’ hope is that this database becomes the “climate adaptation strategy and case study one-stop-shop.” To achieve this, the Adaptation Strategies database needs to be integrated into a portable interface that can be embedded into a variety of climate change related websites.
Figure 1: current configuration of the CIAT tool 2. Limited User Involvement in Database Content
There is currently no automated way for users to add strategies to the database in a quality-controlled manner. Users of the site often have resources they believe should be added to the database. This is currently achieved in an ad hoc manner: the user fills out an online form (which is not available directly through the CIAT site) and the information is then reviewed by the CIAT team who adds it to the database if it is relevant. Our clients suggested that this process should be formalized and an option to add strategies to the database be made available to users within the tool itself. This process can be semi-automated, but all additions will still need to go through the CIAT team for quality control.
3. Database Limitations
Though there are currently about 600 strategies in the database, results can become limited as soon as a user adds multiple filters to a query. Locating strategies to add to the database and manually coding them is time consuming. Additionally, many strategies exist in documents that are not categorized as climate impact resources (for example, green infrastructure documents).
CIAT is interested in integrating these “missing” strategies, but doesn’t know how to identify them. Any possible automation or semi-automation that could help them to identify and code adaptation strategy documents would be beneficial. Finally, there is no method in place for updating strategy document links and ensuring up-to-date content. While addressing this is not the main goal of the project, it is something to keep in mind.
Our focus for the project is addressing the first problem listed above: the adaptation strategies database is not available as a stand-alone, portable tool. While creating a solution for this issue, we hope to also address the second and third problems regarding user involvement in database content and database limitations. We have brainstormed several possible solutions for addressing these problems:
1. Portable Adaptation Strategies Tool
Our primary goal is to construct a portable adaptation strategies tool. This tool will have two main components: (1) a lightweight user interface (UI) and (2) the adaptation strategies database. The UI component will need to be built using standard, open-source web programming (for example, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Drupal, or Wordpress). The tool will then be able to be integrated into a variety of climate-related websites such as ASAP, C2ES, or CakeX. Two configurations of the tool’s components are possible: (1) each website hosts its own version of the strategies database (see Figure 2) or (2) CIAT hosts the database and each website makes calls to this central location (see Figure 3). This second option, if achievable, is preferred since updates to the database will only need to happen in a single location that is controlled by the CIAT team.
Figure 2: a portable UI and strategies database module can be plugged in to other climate adaptation websites
Figure 3: a portable UI that links to the CIAT-hosted strategies database can be plugged in to other climate adaptation websites
2. Expand Filter Abilities
As a group, we are interested in the possibility of expanding the different filter approaches to the strategies database. We have considered an infographic approach where users can select the area of a cityscape that they are hoping to address. Alternatively, we have thought about integrating a map component, possibly even the peer cities map. By giving users multiple ways to search for adaptation strategies, we believe they may be more likely to identify useful documents.
3. Enable User Submissions to the Database
The new portable UI can include an area where users can submit their own strategies to the database. Submissions would be sent to CIAT staff for review. Most simply, a link to the current online form can be integrated into the new UI.
4. Enable User Feedback
One solution to the issue of keeping strategies up-to-date would be to allow users to flag links that are no longer functioning.
5. Mining Strategies
Data mining and text mining could potentially be employed to locate new adaptation strategies to add to the database. These techniques might also be leveraged to complete the coding of new strategies. This approach is likely too involved given our project scope and group skill set, but it is worth noting here as part of our brainstorm process and something CIAT may be interested in pursuing in the future.
