Project 1: Carto

Carto (formerly CartoDB) was used to create three maps: two flow maps of international airline travel and one choropleth map of drought in the United States.

The flow map seen below shows flights, categorized by airline carrier, originating from Vancouver International Airport (airline code YVR.) The creation of this map involved joining airport locations and airline route data tables, creating lines in Carto to join the appropriate airports based on the routes, and converting these straight lines into great circle lines to reflect the curvature of the earth and account for the international dateline. The widget to the right of the map enables airline carriers to be selected for display on the map and can be searched by 2-digit airline codes.

The flow map seen below shows flights, categorized by airline carrier, originating from Boston Logan International Airport (airline code BOS.) The creation of this map involved joining airport locations and airline route data tables, creating lines in Carto to join the appropriate airports based on the routes, and converting these straight lines into great circle lines to reflect the curvature of the earth and account for the international dateline. The widget to the right of the map enables airline carriers to be selected for display on the map and can be searched by 2-digit airline codes.

The choropleth map seen below displays the severity of drought levels across the United States as of February 14, 2017. The shading on the map reflects the five classifications of drought -- abnormally dry, moderate drought, severe drought, extreme drought, exceptional drought -- and areas devoid of color are regions not experiencing drought. While only one region in California is experiencing what is classified as "exceptional drought," many regions across the whole of the United States are experiencing lesser degrees of drought.

Data for the International Airline Travel flow maps were downloaded from OpenFlights.org (Airport data available here; route data available here.) Data for the Drought choropleth map were downloaded from US Drought Monitor.