Oceana spill map
Transforming hard-to-interpret UK government data into an easy to use interactive map
Transforming hard-to-interpret UK government data into an easy to use interactive map
Year completed
2025
Project length
4 months
Working with
Services
Results
- Automatic daily important and processing of government data into JSON
- Using JSON to plot markers on an interactive map
- Additional info on spills and infrastructure loaded via Ajax
- Hard-hitting facts pulled out for use on other areas of the site
- Worked within existing website
Website
Overview
A particularly fun project with Oceana, the largest international advocacy organisations focused solely on ocean conservation. They wanted to raise awareness around oil and chemical spills reported in the seas surrounding the UK. Will Kinchin of Will Works brought me on board, and working with him is always a pleasure.
The data was publicly available through the UK Government’s Integrated Reporting Service, but it wasn’t easy to interpret. The goal was to make the scale and frequency of these incidents more visible, and understandable, for a wider audience.
We set up a system to automatically pull the data daily, store it in a database, and generate a clean JSON feed of spill locations and related details. These were then plotted on a custom Google Map. The markers were interactive, providing additional spill info, as well as even more info being displayed on pop-up panels. The markers were also fitlered via a series of UI controls. While it sounds simple, there were plenty of quirks in the data format and some technical challenges in keeping everything fast and reliable.
The map and other new elements were integrated into the existing website, which Will had originally designed and built with developer Sam Tidball. The map UI was a natural evolution of that brand work, almost the entire default Google Maps interface was stripped away and replaced with our own design, built to fit seamlessly with the rest of the site.
The ultimate aim of this was to visualise the obscure data, and point people towards charity campaigning URLs, which we did successfully.
Thanks to everyone involved
Naomi, Daisy, Charlotte, Will, Sam
Project images
