Data Journalist David McCandless: "When Sea Levels Attack"

David McCandless of Information is Beautiful teamed up with two designers for an info-graphic entitled "When Sea Levels Attack: Which cities will flood when?" One of the irreversible and uncontested effects of climate change is melting ice sheets and polar caps, which have already created a 20 to 40 cm rise in sea levels. At the going rate, the sea will rise one meter every century. Compared to the cataclysmic projections of extreme weather, this slow effect seems benign at first.

McCandless pulled data from NASA, NewScientist.com, Potsdam institute, Sea Level Explorer and ICPP to show how far above sea-level major cities stand. Los Angeles and Amsterdam average one meter above sea-level. San Francisco, Lower Manhattan, St. Petersburg and Hamburg average two meters above sea-level. As the sea levels rise one meter per century, all five cities will begin to flood in two hundred years.

The info-graphic shows rising sea-levels on the left at a steady rate over 1000 years. Major cities are listed by their meters above sea-level across the bottom. In 800 years, New York, London and Taiwan will be flooding. Many of America's major cities will be underwater in a thousand years.

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You can view more of McCandless's excellent information design on his Flickr stream. It is well worth the trip.

Info-graphics created by Florence Nightingale: Visualizations for hospital reform.

Florence Nightingale is best known for establishing the nursing profession and advocating for hospital reform. What is not widely known is her pioneering work in data-visualization to help reduce war causalities.

Below is one of her info-graphics from the Crimean War, which documents the cause of death in war hospitals over the course of two years. The number of deaths from combat wounds are in red and the number of deaths from preventable disease are in light green. At the time, combat wounds were thought to be responsible for casualties, not preventable issues such as infections.

The diagram on the left displays the improved ratio after Nightingale called for improved sanitation, nutrition, and an increase in support staff. The diagram on right shows the larger ratio before changes were implemented. 

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Fast forward to today's real-time internet. Nightingale's format uses a familiar circle to represent time, similar to a clock face. This is an excellent form for a real-time display that shows the change which your organization aims to improve over time. It also layers the data set that the public believes is the cause of a situation with the data set that is more responsible. As your organization accomplishes its goals for change, the overall statics for the problem improve.

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Visual Change

by the E-Advocate Network

Exploring the intersection of social change and visual culture.

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