Eco-Vis Global Emission Insights
Team Stella-Nova

Team Members:

Syed Ahnaf Raza
Muhammad Ahsan Qadri
Rizwan Ansar
Muhammad Izaan
Memoona Iqbal
Seemab Asghar

Project Details:

What exactly does the project do?
Eco-Vis Global Emission Insights is an interactive, web-based platform designed to visualize and analyze global methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. It provides users with access to both real-time and historical emissions data through intuitive visualizations such as heatmaps, charts, and graphs. The platform allows users to explore emissions data across different regions and time periods, offering insights into the distribution of greenhouse gases and their sources. The platform is equipped with a chatbot powered by Groq AI, which enables users to interact with the data using natural language queries, making the tool accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise.

How does it work?
The platform works by integrating multiple data sources and visualization tools, which allow users to interact with global emissions data in an intuitive way:

Data Sources:
- Methane Emissions: The platform ingests gridded methane emissions data from NetCDF files, covering key sources such as mobile combustion, stationary combustion, landfills, enteric fermentation, and natural gas production. The methane data spans from 2012 to 2019 and is geo-referenced, allowing for accurate spatial analysis.
- CO₂ Emissions: Historical CSV datasets provide CO₂ emissions data by country and sector. Users can filter this data by country, time period, or sector to analyze emission trends.
Visualization and Interaction:
- The platform leverages Plotly and Matplotlib for generating dynamic visualizations such as heatmaps, bar charts, radar plots, and pie charts. Methane emissions are visualized as interactive heatmaps overlaid on geographical maps, allowing users to zoom in on specific areas or view global trends. CO₂ emissions are visualized using multiple chart types, providing an array of options for comparative analysis.
- Users can select specific emission sources and years to visualize methane emissions or filter CO₂ emissions by country or sector. These visualizations can be exported in image or CSV formats for further analysis or reporting.
AI-Powered Chatbot:
- The chatbot, powered by Groq AI, allows users to ask questions in a natural language format, such as "What are the primary sources of methane emissions in 2017?" or "Which country had the highest CO₂ emissions in 2018?". The chatbot retrieves relevant data from the platform and presents it in an easy-to-understand format. This feature greatly enhances the user experience, especially for those who are unfamiliar with complex data analysis techniques.
Deployment:
- The platform is deployed via Streamlit Cloud, ensuring global accessibility. A landing page hosted on Vercel directs users to the main platform. Streamlit Cloud manages the backend infrastructure, ensuring the platform is scalable and continuously updated based on feedback and new data sources.

Benefits of the Project:

Accessible Emissions Data: Eco-Vis makes complex global emissions data accessible to a wide audience, including researchers, environmental agencies, policymakers, and the general public. The interactive and visual nature of the platform allows users to gain insights quickly and effectively, reducing the need for specialized knowledge in data analysis.
Actionable Insights for Climate Action: By visualizing methane and CO₂ emissions over time and across regions, the platform helps users identify high-emission zones, track trends, and understand the sources of these emissions. This data can inform policy decisions, research studies, and sustainability initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change.
Natural Language Interaction: The integration of the Groq AI-powered chatbot allows users to ask questions about emissions without needing to understand the intricacies of data filtering or analysis. This makes the platform accessible to non-technical users, further democratizing access to emissions data.
Flexibility and Customization: The platform allows users to export visualized data and reports, enabling further analysis using external tools or integration into presentations and research.

What do you hope to achieve?
The primary goal of Eco-Vis Global Emission Insights is to provide a comprehensive, user-friendly platform for visualizing and analyzing methane and CO₂ emissions, ultimately supporting global efforts to combat climate change. By making emissions data more accessible and actionable, we aim to:

Empower researchers, policymakers, and environmental organizations with the data they need to identify trends, set policies, and track progress toward reducing emissions.
Contribute to global climate change mitigation by providing tools that highlight critical areas of focus, such as regions with high emissions or sectors that require targeted interventions.
Foster public awareness and understanding of emissions data by making it available to a wider audience, helping to build a collective effort toward climate action.

Tools, Coding Languages, and Software Used:

Programming Languages:
- Python: Python is the primary programming language used for data processing, handling, and visualization. It integrates well with the libraries used for data manipulation and visual representation.
Libraries and Frameworks:
- Plotly and Matplotlib: These libraries are employed for creating interactive, high-quality visualizations such as heatmaps, line charts, bar charts, and more. Plotly, in particular, enables interactive web-based visualizations.
- Pandas and NumPy: These are essential libraries for handling, processing, and analyzing the large datasets involved. They allow efficient manipulation of the emissions data and integration with visualization tools.
- NetCDF4: Used to handle the NetCDF files containing methane emissions data, allowing for the extraction and manipulation of multidimensional arrays of data, such as geospatial and temporal emissions data.
- Streamlit: Streamlit serves as the framework for the platform's web interface, offering a simple and effective way to build data applications with Python. It handles the front-end interaction, ensuring a responsive and user-friendly experience.
- Geopandas: Used for handling geospatial data and plotting the emission heatmaps with geographic coordinates, enabling accurate mapping of methane emissions.
Deployment and Version Control:
- Streamlit Cloud: The platform is deployed on Streamlit Cloud, which offers automatic environment management, global access, and continuous integration with GitHub for updates and maintenance.
- Vercel: The landing page for the platform is hosted on Vercel, providing a fast and reliable entry point for users.
- GitHub: The codebase is hosted on GitHub, ensuring version control, collaboration among team members, and transparency. This also allows users to contribute to the project and track its development.

By combining advanced data visualization, AI-powered interactivity, and global accessibility, Eco-Vis Global Emission Insights addresses the need for actionable emissions data in the fight against climate change. Our hope is that this platform will serve as a valuable tool for those working toward emissions reduction and contribute to a broader understanding of the challenges we face in mitigating the effects of greenhouse gases.

2024 NASA Space Apps Challenge

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