EO Dashboard Hackathon

SolCarriers | Environmental Justice During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Environmental Justice During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The purpose of this challenge is to use remote-sensing data and satellite images to help form a better understanding of societal trends as affected by COVID-19. Your challenge is to discern how human activity in communities of minority, low-income, tribal, and indigenous populations have changed as a result of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 Pandemic, Human Mobility, and the Economic Slowdown in Latin America and the Caribbean

Summary

Our project uses Earth Observation Data to explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on human mobility and economic activity, through the example of Peru.

How I Addressed This Challenge

We developed a webpage where one visualize the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru using Earth Observation Data. This story is important because of what it tells us both about what you can and cannot see using Earth Observation data, and how those observations and data use can inform better policies and decision-making. We hope to inform more people about the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, using the case of Peru as an example.

How I Developed This Project

We were inspired to choose this challenge because of our knowledge and commitment to the region and its people. We stand in solidarity with people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and hope that we will be able to find solutions to emerge from the socioeconomic crises triggered by the pandemic stronger than before.

To develop this project, we started with the Earth Observing Dashboard, to see what indicators were available for Latin America and the Caribbean. We were hoping to be able to access more data for countries in the LAC region and we hope that this will become more easily accessible in the future. While exploring the available indicators, we examined the slowdown proxy data. We reviewed the proxy indicators for Peru and learned more about the story of COVID-19 in the country. As we learned more about the story of Peru, we decided that we wanted to put the slowdown proxy map into context. During this analysis, we wanted to overlay the slowdown proxy map with data about the streets and buildings, in order to know more about which areas were affected. However, we were unable to do so because of time constraints. Time constraints also prevented us from including other indicators and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in our project.

We used HTML, Javascript and CSS to create the website, Notepad++ to program the site, and Adobe Animate CC to create the canvas. We wanted to create the site in a way that it would be engaging and interactive for people to use, as well as simple, straightforward, and engaging.

How I Used Space Agency Data in This Project

The Data from the Earth Observing Dashboard was at the core of our project. Looking at the representations of the economic slowdown data inspired us to try to put this data into the context of the socioeconomic impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic had in Peru.