News Archive

Scientists Combine Immersive Technology and Collaboration to Address Climate Challenges

New initiative called “EcoViz” enables clear and compelling visualizations of environmental data from fire to floods

Published December 12, 2024

Aerial view with visualization showing the flood protection benefits of coral reefs in Miami Beach, Florida.

Visualization showing the flood protection benefits of coral reefs in Miami Beach, Florida by the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz. Credit: 3D visualization by Ian Costello and Jessica Kendall-Bar. Hydrodynamic modeling by Camila Gaido-Lasserre and Borja Gonzalez Reguero.

By Kimberly Mann Bruch, SDSC Communications

A team of scientists and science communicators affiliated with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), part of the School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences at UC San Diego, and the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz have developed an initiative called EcoViz focused on immersive technology—advanced hardware and software to simulate environments and experiences—and collaboration to address environmental challenges ranging from fire management to reef restoration and more.

“With climate impacts rippling through ecosystems worldwide, EcoViz’s mission is to help bridge the communication gap by working with domain experts, community members and policy makers to create clear and compelling visualizations of environmental data,” said Jessica Kendall-Bar, an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “These visualizations depict data-driven science that can serve as the groundwork for fire management, reef restoration and conservation decisions.”

Kendall-Bar, along with SDSC Chief Data Science Officer Ilkay Altintas and researchers from UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Coastal Climate Resilience, recently presented EcoViz at the 2024 IEEE VIS Workshop on Visualization for Climate Action and Sustainability.

To demonstrate the initiative aimed at making climate data more clear and engaging, the team developed three major visualization use cases, each tailored to illustrate complex, time-dependent environmental changes. Using a mix of cinematic techniques, scientific data and interactive formats, EcoViz illustrates complex datasets ranging from coastal flood protection benefits and marine animal behavior to wildfire management.

Co-designed environmental data visualizations from the collaborative initiative, EcoViz, communicate ecosystem impacts, inform management and envision solutions. Credit: Video by Jessica Kendall-Bar. Visualizations by Jessica Kendall-Bar, Isaac Nealey, and Ian Costello.

According to the presenters, some visualizations were most effective as narrative-driven animations, while others gained traction through being interactive by allowing users to explore geospatial data and experience ecosystems virtually through immersive technology.

“Through varied approaches, this collaborative team has found that data-driven, cinematic videos with straightforward charts and minimal text annotations can synthesize findings most clearly,” Kendall-Bar said. “Videos can help diverse audiences grasp big ideas quickly, retain critical details and are adaptable enough for use in broader environmental storytelling.”

According to Altintas, who co-leads the Schmidt AI in Science Fellowship and is the Director of the Cyberinfrastructure and Convergence Research Division at SDSC, by combining visual creativity with scientific rigor, EcoViz is helping to transform raw climate data into stories that can inspire informed policy and resilient climate solutions. “As we integrate AI into scientific workflows that form the basis of decision-making, visualizations are key to making our models interpretable,” she said.

Funding for this work was provided by the University of California Climate Action program, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, AXA Research Fund, FEMA, USGS and the UCSC Center for Coastal Climate Resilience.