SkyTruth Alerts 2023: New Incident Types and Enhanced Features

Intern Ethan Bevan has been working to add new incident types to SkyTruth Alerts. Photo by Brendan Jarrell.

As the world continues to grapple with environmental challenges, tools like SkyTruth Alerts have become invaluable for those who are passionate about tracking and responding to environmental incidents.

In 2023, SkyTruth introduced changes that expand the platform’s capabilities and provide additional monitoring opportunities. In this blog post, we’ll explore three new incident types added to SkyTruth Alerts — California Hazardous Materials Spills, Texas Oil and Gas Drilling Permits, and U.K. Oil and Gas Spills at Sea. Additionally, we’ll take a look at some new features incorporated into the Layers and Drag-and-Drop tabs.

New Alert Incident Types: Expanding Our Reach

Recap: To receive alert emails, 1) sign up for the incidents you want to know about, 2) identify the Areas of Interest (AOIs) you care about. Alerts will then email you when new incidents are found in your AOIs. You can also view incidents for your current map view directly on the Alerts map.

California Hazardous Materials Spills

New spill incidents are pulled daily from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. You will find spills related to petroleum, chemical, sewage, railroad, weather, and other incidents, along with details on location, agencies involved, and a detailed description of the incident. These incidents are classified as Pollution Alerts on the map.

Texas Oil and Gas Drilling Permits

This data is updated daily by the Railroad Commission of Texas. Both horizontal and vertical wells are included, along with a timeline of the permit’s activity and identifying information for the lease, operator, well, and county. These incidents are classified as Drilling Permits Approved Alerts on the map.

U.K. Oil and Gas Spills at Sea

The United Kingdom’s Petroleum Operations Notices 1 (PON1) are used to report all releases to sea of oil and offshore chemicals that occur during offshore oil and gas activities. SkyTruth does a daily downloading and posting of new and updated spills. Data on each incident includes the date first observed, incident type (oil, chemical, etc.), organizations involved, and total quantity released. These incidents are classified as Pollution Alerts on the map.

New Layers Features: Less Clutter, More Customization

Recap: The Map Layers tab shows existing layers that can be added to your map. Layers are grouped by category, which can be opened and closed based on the topics you’re interested in.

2023 Updates:

You can now search for layers
You can pin your favorite layers so they show up at the top
For many layers, you can change the color and opacity shown on the map

We’ve also added some new layers, including Bathymetry, National Conservation Easements (US), FracTracker (US), NAIP imagery (US), Marine Protected Areas, Tailings Dams, Orphaned Wells (US), and Pipeline Routes from Oil & Gas Watch (US).

New Drag-and-Drop Features: Save the Data You Bring

Recap: The Drag and Drop Files tab lets you drop any of the following file types (up to 100MB) directly onto the map: GeoJSON, kml, zip file containing shapefile data (shp, dbf, prj, etc.) up to 25MB, CSV file with column names in the first row and both latitude and longitude columns in decimal format, and Text files with valid GeoJSON data. Other than shapefile data, compressed files (including KMZ files) must first be uncompressed.

2023 Updates:

You can set the color and opacity for a dropped file
After dropping file on the map, you can now save it for later use
Saved files will show up in the My Layers category on the Layers sidebar

Other Changes

We’ve made dozens of other changes to Alerts in 2023, including:

Many layers have geometric shapes (polygons, rectangles) that can be clicked for additional information. For example, after opening the Wildfire Perimeters layer, you can click on a fire outline for more information about the fire. You can then also click the icon to zoom into the fire outline, and even save it as one of your AOIs.
Many new public maps are available.
New Social Media Mode (this is a checkbox in the burger menu) can be used to create better screen captures (no map controls, larger attributions, etc.).
New “Map Inset” option (from the burger menu) provides a nice map insert in many cases.

Conclusion

We always welcome ideas (email us at support@skytruth.org) for improving our products and services. This year’s updates are the result of feedback from our users. Whether you’re an environmental advocate, researcher, or a concerned citizen, SkyTruth Alerts now has more tools and features to help you contribute to making this a better, more sustainable world. We hope you’ll explore these new features and let us know what you think!