Decision support system for emergency management of oil spill accidents in the Mediterranean Sea

This paper presents an innovative web-based decision support system to facilitate emergency management in the case of oil spill accidents, called WITOIL (Where Is The Oil). The system can be applied to create a forecast of oil spill events, evaluate uncertainty of the predictions, and calculate hazards based on historical meteo-oceanographic datasets. To compute the oil transport and transformation, WITOIL uses the MEDSLIK-II oil spill model forced by operational meteo-oceanographic services. Results of the modeling are visualized through Google Maps. A special application for Android is designed to provide mobile access for competent authorities, technical and scientific institutions, and citizens

SeaConditions: a web and mobile service for safer professional and recreational activities in the Mediterranean Sea

Abstract. Reliable and timely information on the environmental conditions at sea is key to the safety of professional and recreational users as well as to the optimal execution of their activities. The possibility of users obtaining environmental information in due time and with adequate accuracy in the marine and coastal environment is defined as sea situational awareness (SSA). Without adequate information on the environmental meteorological and oceanographic conditions, users have a limited capacity to respond, which has led to loss of lives and to large environmental disasters with enormous consequent damage to the economy, society and ecosystems. Within the framework of the TESSA project, new SSA services for the Mediterranean Sea have been developed. In this paper we present SeaConditions, which is a web and mobile application for the provision of meteorological and oceanographic observation and forecasting products. Model forecasts and satellite products from operational services, such as ECMWF and CMEMS, can be visualized in SeaConditions. In addition, layers of information related to bathymetry, sea level and ocean-colour data (chl a and water transparency) are displayed. Ocean forecasts at high spatial resolutions are included in the version of SeaConditions presented here. SeaConditions provides a user-friendly experience with a fluid zoom capability, facilitating the appropriate display of data with different levels of detail. SeaConditions is a single point of access to interactive maps from different geophysical fields, providing high-quality information based on advanced oceanographic models. The SeaConditions services are available through both web and mobile applications. The web application is available at www.sea-conditions.com and is accessible and compatible with present-day browsers. Interoperability with GIS software is implemented. User feedback has been collected and taken into account in order to improve the service. The SeaConditions iOS and Android apps have been downloaded by more than 105 000 users to date (May 2016), and more than 100 000 users have visited the web version

An Experience on Cooperative Development of Interactive Visualizations for the Analysis of Urban Data

Digital technologies and social networks offer several possibilities for improving the quality of life in Smart Cities. Citizens are willing to contribute to the efficiency of services that Smart Cities offer by reporting through different channels, such as phone/fax, front office, website, mobile app, sensors, several problems they observe in the city. This paper contributes to the advancement of the practice of HCI by describing an experience carried out with the employees of a municipality about the identification and implementation of interactive visualizations, in order to support them in the management of urban issues reported by citizens. The performed experience was inspired by the Cooperative Method Development (CMD), that emphasizes a strong collaboration between IT researchers and experts in a work practice, working side by side and being focused on the practitioners’ problems, in order to identify critical aspects and possible improvements that lead to the design and development of new software artifacts. The municipality employees greatly appreciated their active involvement in the overall CMD process, as well as the improvements on data analysis, thanks to the developed interactive visualizations that enable them to detect trends, anomalies and significant facts in the management of urban issues

An experience on cooperative development of interactive visualizations for the analysis of urban data - Presentazione al workshop

Digitaltechnologiesandsocialnetworksofferseveralpossibilitiesfor improving the quality of life in Smart Cities. Citizens are willing to contribute to the efficiency of services that Smart Cities offer by reporting through dif- ferent channels, such as phone/fax, front office, website, mobile app, sensors, several problems they observe in the city. This paper contributes to the advance- ment of the practice of HCI by describing an experience carried out with the employees of a municipality about the identification and implementation of inter- active visualizations, in order to support them in the management of urban issues reported by citizens. The performed experience was inspired by the Cooperative Method Development (CMD), that emphasizes a strong collaboration between IT researchers and experts in a work practice, working side by side and being focused on the practitioners’ problems, in order to identify critical aspects and possible improvements that lead to the design and development of new software artifacts. The municipality employees greatly appreciated their active involvement in the overall CMD process, as well as the improvements on data analysis, thanks to the developed interactive visualizations that enable them to detect trends, anomalies and significant facts in the management of urban issues

Visualizations of multidimensional data reported by citizens - Presentazione al congresso

Digital technologies offer new possibilities for improving the quality of life of people living in Smart Cities. City administrations are more and more soliciting citizens to provide indications about problems they notice in the city and citizens are keen to contribute to improve the quality of life. Citizens may be considered as complex sensors in Smart Cities, they provide rich data, such as individual measurements, their subjective perceptions or personal comments [1–3]. This paper is about the work we are carrying out with a Smart City municipality on the use of interactive visualizations to support the analysis of multidimensional data reported by citizens through specific apps on mobile devices. The analysis aims at reducing the time to solve the reported problems as well as understanding the different performances of the municipality departments involved in the process. Many effective visualization techniques are available in the literature [5–7]. Choosing a good visualization technique depends very much on the type of data and on the needs and objectives of the analysts. In order to better satisfy the analysts’ requirements, in creating the visualizations we adopted an approach inspired to the Cooperative Method Development (CMD) proposed by Dittrich et al. [4], which emphasizes a strong collaboration between IT researchers and experts in the work practice, in order to focus on the practitioners’ problems, identify issues and propose improvements. The work with the city data analysts led to the development of various visualizations, some are based on already known techniques, e.g. the Treemap [8], others have been purposely created to show in a single visualization the multidimensional data of interest. The analysts appreciated a lot the proposed visualizations, which allow them to easily detect trends, anomalies and significant facts in the management of urban issues; they acknowledged very much that these visualizations greatly improve their data analysis activitie

SeaConditions: a web and mobile service for safer professional and recreational activities in the Mediterranean Sea

Reliable and timely information on the environmental conditions at sea is key to the safety of professional and recreational users as well as to the optimal execution of their activities. The possibility of users obtaining environmental information in due time and with adequate accuracy in the marine and coastal environment is defined as sea situational awareness (SSA). Without adequate information on the environmental meteorological and oceanographic conditions, users have a limited capacity to respond, which has led to loss of lives and to large environmental disasters with enormous consequent damage to the economy, society and ecosystems. Within the framework of the TESSA project, new SSA services for the Mediterranean Sea have been developed. In this paper we present SeaConditions, which is a web and mobile application for the provision of meteorological and oceanographic observation and forecasting products. Model forecasts and satellite products from operational services, such as ECMWF and CMEMS, can be visualized in SeaConditions. In addition, layers of information related to bathymetry, sea level and ocean-colour data (chl a and water transparency) are displayed. Ocean forecasts at high spatial resolutions are included in the version of SeaConditions presented here. SeaConditions provides a user-friendly experience with a fluid zoom capability, facilitating the appropriate display of data with different levels of detail. SeaConditions is a single point of access to interactive maps from different geophysical fields, providing high-quality information based on advanced oceanographic models. The SeaConditions services are available through both web and mobile applications. The web application is available at www.sea-conditions.com and is accessible and compatible with present-day browsers. Interoperability with GIS software is implemented. User feedback has been collected and taken into account in order to improve the service. The SeaConditions iOS and Android apps have been downloaded by more than 105000 users to date (May 2016), and more than 100000 users have visited the web version