A Guide to the Interactive Map
A new addition to the Source to Sea trip this year is the interactive map. The goal is to provide a platform for raising awareness on the issues surrounding of the Colorado River through a interactive and user driven map that contains photos, videos and spatial data. All of the media is hosted online through Flickr for the photos, Youtube for the videos and Downthecolorado.org for blog posts. The spatial data is split into three themes, Climate Change, Trans Basin Diversions and Water Use. Data such as dam location and storage capacity, predicted surface runoff change, water diversion locations and water usage by county are presented to inform the user of the basic facts about the Colorado River. Below is a quick guide to help users understand and operate the interactive map.
First off the map has default settings for zoom, theme and social data being shown. The zoom bar is located on the upper left corner of the map, but should not be needed as the default zoom will include all of the social data posted to date. Currently the map is set on the Trans Basin theme, zoomed to the headwaters area and showing Flickr and Notes, summaries of our blog posts as well as link to the full blog post. To access either of these just click on the icon and a small pop up window will appear with the photo or text. Depending on the size and resolution of your computer screen the pop up window may drag the map to show the entire window. To re scroll back to the desired area, just click and drag the map back. To see the Flickr photos at a larger scale with captions simply click on the photo within the pop up window and a new tab will automatically open to Flickr page of the photo. For opening the full blog post on the Notes, simply click the hyper linked text.
The pop up window of a Note, with a brief summary of the blog post and a hyperlink to the complete blog post.
A Flickr photo showing the pop up window on the map. To access the full size image with caption click on the photo and you will be redirected to photo’s Flickr page.
To navigate between different themes, click on the themes in the top right corner of the map. Once clicked on, a legend will appear for the theme selected. To switch themes click on the theme title, Water Use, Climate Change or Trans Basin diversions and the spatial data will change automatically. For changing the base layer click on the tab just to the left of themes, which will be named USA Topographic, DeLorme or Aerials depending on what is currently being shown and select one of the four base layer options.
The available base layers, simply click on one to select it as the base layer for the map.
The social data tab with the available options to have displayed on the map. The ‘i’ symbol shows what keywords and dates are currently being used. The gear symbol to the right will allow the user to change the keywords and dates, currently they are set to the expeditions content.
In the future, the interviews we have been conducting will be posted using Youtube and additional Notes and Flickr photos will be posted along with new spatial data surrounding the Colorado River. Hopefully this short introduction has helped you navigate the interactive map and ideas fro improvement as well as comments would be appreciated below.
