· Group Facilities and Aggregate Emissions
· Emissions Spatial Calculator
· Geocoding and Place Searching
· Treemap
· Graphic User Interface (GUI)
The Graphic User Interface (GUI) of this online tool consists of five resizable and closable panes: NORTH, SOUTH, WEST, EAST, and CENTER.
To resize a pane, click on a Pane Resizer bar, and drag the bar to a desirable position. To close a pane, click on the Pane Closer button at the center of a Pane Resizer bar.
The NORTH pane has an array of graphic icons linked to the State of California and ARB homepages, and various climate change programs at ARB. The SOUTH pane reveals the version of the web tool. The WEST pane hosts ‘Facility Search Criteria’ options. The EAST pane presents emissions summary data by various group factors. The CENTER pane is designated to visualize and analyze facilities and emissions in mapping, graphic, and tabular formats. It contains the following modules: Maps, Charts, Analysis, and Data. A Help module is also available in the CENTER pane.
Users can change the GUI color scheme by clicking on the ‘Switch Theme’ button in the upper-right area. Select a color scheme from the dropdown list, colors of panes and tabs will change accordingly. Click on the ‘Revert’ button to reset the color sachem to its default settings.
Facilities and emissions are queried based on one or any combinations of the following criteria specified in the WEST pane: Facility Name, Emission Year, Geographic Region, Primary Sector, Cap-and-Trade, and Emission Level of the first selected Air Pollutant. Categories of facility search criteria can be opened/closed individually by click on a particular category tab, or be opened /closed altogether by click on the ‘Open’ or ‘Hide’ toggle button next to the ‘Facility Search Criteria’ title.
Here are some general rules that apply to the Facility Search Criteria:
· All facility search criteria of different categories work together in generating facility query results;
· Multiple selections are allowed for Emission Year, Geographic Region, Primary Sector, and Air Pollutant. When none selection is entered in a category, the query assumes all possible values in the category;
· For the Geographic Region, available choices in lower categories are dictated by selections entered in upper categories. For example, if only ‘SACRAMENTO VALLEY’ is selected in the ‘Basin’, then the drop-down lists for ‘District’, ‘County’, ‘City’ and ‘Zipcode’ are all limited to the regions within the ‘SACRAMENTO VALLEY’ air basin.
· If multiple air pollutants are selected, the Emissions Level selector will only apply to the first air pollutant being selected.
· The tool instantly responds to any changes in Facility Search Criteria, and refreshes the data in the CENTER and EAST panes;
· Changes made in Facility Search Criteria are automatically synchronized among different modules of the tool. For example, any changes made in Facility Search Criteria at the ‘Maps’ module will also be reflected in the ‘Charts’, ‘Analysis’ and ‘Data’ modules when users switch between these modules.
Because of these features, the tool offers almost unlimited possibilities to produce customized maps, charts and datasets, making emissions visualization and analysis an easy and fun thing to do.
In Maps module, selected facilities are displayed on the map as markers and their emissions as heatmaps. Selected facilities and associated emissions are also listed on the EAST pane, where users can sort the table by facility names or by emissions. Facilities can be grouped by various factors such as year, sector or geographic boundaries, and aggregated emissions from grouped facilities will be calculated and displayed in the EAST pane. The tool offers an array of spatial calculators to quantify emissions as well as demographic and social-economic characteristics of the user-defined areas. Multiple map layers are available to overlay on the map, so that facilities and their emissions can be assessed and analyzed in a broad context. Utilities are provided for exporting maps, downloading data, geocoding, and searching places on the map. The tool leverages the services and functions provided by Google Maps, so that users can obtain the detailed satellite images and street views of facility physical sites.
The color of markers marks different facility types. Hovering mouse pointer over the ‘Facilities’ tab on top of the map will show the legends of facility markers. If users click on a facility marker legend from the dropdown list, markers representing the selected facilities will bounce on the map, making it easy to locate these facilities on the map.
Click a facility marker on the map to open the facility information window. Users can also open the facility information window by click a facility record on the emission summary table in EAST pane. This operation will also set the facility marker to bounce on the map. The facility and emissions information is grouped into various categories and is presented under separate tabs.
Facility tab contains the facility basic information, such as facility name, ID, address, sector and location.
GHG tab lists emissions of greenhouse gases in the selected emission year.
Criteria tab lists emissions of criteria pollutants in the selected emission year.
Toxic tab lists emissions of the Top 10 toxic pollutants in the selected emission year.
Risk tab lists potency weighted pounds of all toxic pollutants emitted from the facility in the selected emission year.
CAPS tab contains demographic and social-economic data in a 1-mile radius circle centered at the facility.
Trend tab summarizes facility’s annual GHG emissions over the years. Emissions of the selected ‘Emissions Year’ are highlighted in the table (Year 2013 in the following example).
Chart tab presents facility’s GHG emissions trend with a bar chart. The bar representing the selected ‘Emissions Year’ is highlighted in the chart (Year 2013 in the following example). Users can compare the emission trends of different pollutants.
Switch Google Maps to the Satellite mode and room in the map. You will see the detailed satellite image of the facility.
Room in further you will see the facility from different angles by click on the image rotate button.
Users can click Street View icon on the map to have a street view of the facility. Click Close icon on the upper-right corner to close the Street View.
Group Facilities and Aggregate Emissions
The ‘Group by’ tab provides functions to aggregate emissions by various group factors, such as emission year, primary sector, or geographic region. The emissions summary table is located in EAST pane. The emissions summary table is sortable by the group factor or by the emissions level. The emissions summary table also interacts with the map. When a row in the summary table is clicked, facility markers in the selected category will bounce on the map. In case the group factor is a geographic region, a base map of the geographic boundaries is also loaded onto the map.
Beside of facilities, users can load various map layers on the map, and view facilities in a broad context of geographic regions or other useful information. The map layers are categorized into several groups in the Map Layers dropdown list:
§ Air Monitors in California
§ Base Maps – Air District, Air Basin, County, Zip Code, Township
§ Non-Attainment Areas – Ozone and PM2.5
§ CalEnvironScreen - by Census Tract (v2.0), by Zip Code (v1.1)
§ NATA 2005 – Cancer Risk, Respiration Risk, and Neurological Risk by Census Tract
§ Weather & Cloud – Weather Forecast and Cloud Coverage (deprecated)
§ Transportation – Traffic, Transit, Bicycling
§ Clear Maps – unload all map layers on the map
When users click once on a map layer, the map layer is loaded on the Google Maps; click another time on the same map layer, the map layer will be unloaded from the Google Maps. To unload all map layers, click ‘Clear Maps’ on the dropdown list. When facilities and emissions are grouped by a geographic region, the corresponding geographic boundary map will be automatically loaded on the map.
When this tab is clicked, the map will be centered at and zoomed to the state of California, and the map type will be reset as the terrain map. This function enables users to jump out quickly from detailed facility level maps to the statewide overview map.
By default, selected facilities are shown on the map with markers and their emissions with the heatmap. The heatmap combined with the facility maker allows users to see not only the facility location, but also the relative emissions level from the facility. The heatmap aslo helps to illustrate the collective emissions and heavily impacted areas from clustered facilities. Users can show facility makers with the heatmap, or the heatmap only. Click the HeatMap button on the top-right of the map, all facility markers are gone and only the heatmap remains. In the meantime, the HeatMap button becomes the Markers button. Click the Markers button will bring back the facility markers on the map. If more than one air pollutants are selected, only the emissions of the first selected air pollutant are used to create the heatmap.
The Drawing toolbar is located at the up-right corner on the map. It contains the following icons for drawing different shapes: point, polyline, circle, rectangle, and polygon. To draw a shape on the map, users need to select a shape from the Drawing toolbar, and then click on the map to start drawing the shape on the map. Users can draw multiple shapes of the same kind or different kind on the map. Once a shape is drawn, users can color, move, resize, edit, and delete the shape. When a shape on the map is selected, a color palette and a delete button will appear on the up-right corner below the Drawing toolbar. Using the color palette and the delete button, users can change the color of the shape, or remove the shape from the map. When a shape is clicked, an information window will also pop up. The information window contains the location and/or geometry parameters of the shape, such as Lat/Lng, length and area. Users can drag & drop the shape anywhere on the map, or drag & drop some key points on the shape to resize and edit the shape. The location and/or geometry parameters in the information window are updated on fly when the shape is moved, resized or edited.
Except point and polyline, the circle, rectangle, and polygon shapes are primarily for defining customized areas on the amp and quantify emissions from facilities within the user-defined areas.
o Point - The point shape is useful for point-and-click geocoding on the map. Select the point icon in the Drawing toolbar and click on the map, then a point marker is created. Click on the marker, and its Lat/Lng will show in the information window. Users can drag & drop the marker anywhere on the map, and the Lat/Lng will be updated simultaneously.
o Polyline - The polyline shape can be used to calculate the distance between two or multiple points on the map. When creating a polyline, double-click to end drawing of the polyline. The information window of the polyline contains Lat/Lng of all click-points on the polyline, and the total length of the polyline. To measure the distance between two points, create a line that starts at one point and ends at the other point.
o Circle - Using the circular shape, users can draw a circle on the map. The tabbed information window of the circle contains geometry parameters of the shape, facilities in the circle, aggregated emissions from these facilities, and GHG emissions trend. The selected Emission Year will be highlighted in Trend and Chart tabs. Users can drag-and-drop the circle to a different location, or change the radius of the circle. The content of the information window will be updated instantly following every shape-editing operation.
o Rectangle - Using the rectangular shape, users can draw a rectangle on the map. The tabbed information window of the rectangle contains geometry parameters of the shape, facilities in the rectangle, aggregated emissions from these facilities, and GHG emissions trend. The selected Emission Year will be highlighted in Trend and Chart tabs. Users can drag-and-drop the rectangle to a different location, or change the shape of the rectangle. The content of the information window will be updated instantaneously following every shape-editing operation.
o Polygon - Using the polygon shape, users can draw a polygon on the map. The tabbed information window of the polygon contains geometry parameters of the shape, facilities in the polygon, aggregated emissions from these facilities, and GHG emissions trend. The selected Emission Year will be highlighted in Trend and Chart tabs. Users can drag-and-drop the polygon to a different location, or change the shape of the polygon. The content of the information window will be updated instantly following every the shape-editing operation.
Click ‘Get Image’ button above the map, users can export the facility map as a static Google Map and then embed the map in other documents. On the bottom of the image is a map URL that can be copy & pasted to any web browsers, or embedded on other web pages. Right-click the static map, a menu will pop up with options to copy or to save the image. The number of facilities exported to a static map should not exceed 85 facilities. All facilities are represented with a common generic marker on the static map. Other map layers are stripped off when exporting the Google maps as a static map.
Geocoding is an operation of finding the Lat/Lng of a place from its address. The reverse-geocoding is a process to estimate the street address of a place from its Lat/Lng. Users can do both regular geocoding and reverse geocoding with the tool using the built-in Place Search toolbar on the map. The Place Search toolbar is located on top of the map, where users can type in an address to be geocoded, or the Lat/Lng for reverse geocoding. Beside of geocoding, users can also search places or business on the map using this toolbar. When an address or a place name is typed in the toolbar, the auto-completing function is enabled, and users can select the best matched string from a list of candidates.
The geocoding or place search results will be placed on the map as markers of various icons, depending on the type of place or business being searched. The information window will contain the address and Lat&Lng, and possibly phone number and website if the searched place is a business. To easily spot the place markers, users can click the HeatMap button to remove facility markers on the map.
The Place Searching for business is sensitive to the map bounds, meaning it only returns results within the scope of current map.
When a facility is selected in the Emission Summary table on EAST pane, the facility name is automatically populated in the Place Search toolbar, so that users can search the facility on the map with just one mouse-click.
The tool offers the following types of charts to present emissions from individual facilities or aggregated emissions from a group of facilities:
o Pie Chart
o Bar Chart
o Column Chart
o Tree Map
Users can switch between different charts by clicking on the chart icons on top of the chart area. The chart type is preserved when switch between different modules. For an example, if you have a bar chart in the Charts module and then switch to the Maps module; it’s still a bar chart when you switch back to the Charts module. All types of charts are sortable, editable, expandable and exportable; and the data used for creating charts are downloadable.
o Sortable - all emissions charts except treemaps are sortable based on either category name or emission level. The following charts are sorted by the emission level.
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o Editable - all emissions charts and their elements can be edited and customized to meet special needs
o Expandable – all emissions charts can be drilled down to the next group level, and ultimately to the facility level
o Exportable - all emissions charts except treemaps can be exported and embedded in other documents or websites
o Downloadable – the data used to create the emissions charts can be download as csv files
Pie Chart is the default chart when a user switches from other modules to the Charts module for the first time of the user session. Click on the pie chart icon to toggle between 2-dimentional and 3-dimentiondal pie charts. If more than one air pollutants are selected, only the emissions of the first selected air pollutant are used for creating the pie chart. Emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases are converted to CO2e metric tons on the pie chart and in the emissions summary table. When a row is clicked in the emissions summary table, the corresponding slice in the pie chart will be highlighted. When a column header is clicked in the emissions summary table, both the table and the chart will be sorted based on the clicked column.
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When more than one air pollutants are selected, emissions of all selected air pollutants will be plotted on the bar chart. Click on the bar chart icon to toggle between stacked and arrayed bar charts. Emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases are converted to CO2e metric tons on the bar chart and in the emissions summary table for easy comparison. The scale of the bar chart might be dominated by the pollutant with the largest emissions so that the emissions of other pollutants are sometimes barely noticeable on the bar chart. When a row is clicked in the emissions summary table, the corresponding bar in the bar chart will be highlighted. When a column header is clicked in the emissions summary table, both the table and the chart will be sorted based on the clicked column.
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When more than one air pollutants are selected, emissions of all selected air pollutants will be plotted on the column chart. Click on the column chart icon to toggle between stacked and arrayed column charts. Emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases are converted to CO2e metric tons on the bar chart and in the emissions summary table for easy comparison. The scale of the column chart might be dominated by the pollutant with large emissions so that the emissions of other pollutants are barely noticeable on the column chart. When a row is clicked in the emissions summary table, the corresponding bar in the column chart will be highlighted. When a column header is clicked in the emissions summary table, both the table and the chart will be sorted based on the clicked column.
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In a treemap, emissions are represented with rectangles of various sizes and colors. The size of a rectangle is directly proportional to the emissions of the entity it represents. The color of a rectangle changes from green to red as the emissions increase. Hover the mouse over a rectangle, the information of the entity represented by the rectangle will pop up.
In this module, users can conduct multi-dimensional, over-time analyses of emissions data. Using motion bubble charts, this module provides a powerful way to visualize emissions data in five dimensions: x-axis, y-axis, size of bubble, color of bubble, and year. Users can set up the first four dimensions to represent emissions of various pollutants. An individual bubble reveals the emissions characteristics of an entity; bubbles of all entities together in motion status illustrate emissions patterns and trends. This is especially useful to explore the relationships between emissions of different pollutants, sectors, regions and years. The data filtering and grouping functions are all available to this module, which means the emissions analysis can be conducted at various spatial aggregating scales and for any industrial sectors. To play the motion chart over the time, users need to select multiple years of emissions data.
Adobe Flash© needs to be installed and activated to use this module. As a default setting, the Firefox web browser blocks outdated Flash players. Users need to click ‘Activate Adobe Flash’ when being prompted, or update the Flash player to the latest version.
The Data module hosts a data table that contains the detailed facility information and their emissions data. As the data table might contain many rows and columns, both vertical and horizontal scroll bars are available when necessary. No paging is the default setting for the data table, but users can reset the number of rows in a page from the ‘row/page’ dropdown list. In case more than one pages are needed to accommodate all records, then the page navigation bar will appear at the bottom of the data table. The data is sortable by any columns. Click on a table header to sort the table in either ascending or descending orders. Users can download the data as a csv file by clicking on the ‘Get Data’ button above the data table.
The emissions summary table resides in the EAST pane of the GUI. The table contains aggregated emissions by various group factors. The default group factor is by facility. Users can chose a different group factor to aggregate emissions by click on the ‘Group by’ dropdown list on top of the CENTER pane. The ‘Group by’ function is available to all modules in the CERTER pane, including Maps, Charts, Analysis, and Data modules. In all modules, the emissions summary table always responds to any changes made in the ‘Facility Search Criteria’ pane. It aggregates emissions of all selected pollutants from the filtered facilities. The emissions summary table is sortable by either the group factor name or by emissions. Click on the table headers to sort the table in either ascending or descending orders. The emissions summary table also interacts with the facility maps and emission charts in CERNTER pane. In Maps module, click a row in the emissions summary table will result in bouncing facility markers that correspond to the clicked row. In Charts module, click a row in the emissions summary table will result in a highlighted chart element that represents the emissions from the selected row. In Charts module, the chart will be sorted when the emissions summary table is sorted.