DISCLAIMER: The project repository as of 5:00PM on the 30th of Saturday 2017 is in the GovHack branch, the master branch has been updated since the competition has finished
The most amazing reef data thing ever!
Data Reef is a collaborative project by team Futuristic Blanket regarding the issues that are currently facing many of Queensland’s natural systems. This web app was inspired by the lack of awareness among Queenslanders about the degenerating condition of the natural ecosystems that allow us to live a comfortable life. We hope to educate by displaying data about the change in the water quality, increase in pollution and endangered species and tidal issues caused by climate change. It’s formatted in an interactive map intended to let clients navigate around Queensland and find important areas that are being threatened by our everyday activities. By creating awareness, we hope to bring light to an important issue and hopefully, spark the need for change for generations now and continuing.
This project aims to display data about the variables which are evidence of the degeneration of our natural ecosystems including species under high risk, the changes in tidal patterns, decreasing water quality and similar. By selecting locations known for their important natural systems, you are then given the data in the ways of charts, graphs and similar that comprehensively explain the way our Queensland icons are being damaged through visual means.
One of the biggest problems in creating this app was agreeing with the JSON files. They tended to malfunction often, and the libraries we introduced to the files would fail to work. The Google API’s were not working so we had to move onto the map box API, which worked. And also, as with any collaborative projects, there were a lot of merge conflicts. But starting from the ground up, we managed to overcome all these problems.
This is not the end of Data Reef. We plan to expand it a lot more to include a lot more locations in Queensland, and maybe soon in Australia. There will also be a lot more variables to be taken into account including endangered species protection areas, areas of high risk and the biological data of organisms living in these natural systems, both for the new locations and the existing ones.We are also planning to add a feature where as the bouys move around, their movement is tracked.