Background
Our Earth system is interconnected. An event in one location results in a change elsewhere, and understanding how our world responds to natural and anthropogenic forcings is of the utmost importance for humans to assess our footprint and better manage our natural resources. The COVID-19 pandemic offered an unprecedented opportunity to look at changes in the Earth system in response to reduced human activity, and it allowed us to explore connections between changes in anthropogenic forcings and social and economic activity, and the related Earth system environmental response. However, not all parts of the Earth system reacted in the same way, or at the same speed.
Objectives
Your challenge is to develop tools to better understand changes in the interconnected Earth system as seen through the COVID Dashboard. Specifically, you may (1) develop visualizations that connect the Water Quality (WQ) data from the Dashboard with other in situ and satellite data, such as wind speed, precipitation, river discharge, etc. to provide a bigger picture of conditions throughout the pandemic, identifying possible drivers/consequences to the changes observed; or (2) design a tool that correlates (with/without) lag indicators in the Dashboard, in particular connecting WQ with other indicators to better understand if/what relationships may exist.
Potential Considerations
Different parts of the Earth System react differently, and there may be multiple ‘drivers’ of change acting at different spatial and temporal scales. As a bonus, try developing animations that help visualize these changes.