SkyTruth Alerts

Other Resources: About SkyTruth Alerts Address Conversion/Geocoding

Photo of pipeline explosion, Center Township, PA, taken 2 April 2019. Provided by FracTracker Alliance

About SkyTruth Alerts GeoCoding

In order to put an Alerts marker on the SkyTruth Alerts map, we convert the location that was given in a source report to latitude/longitude coordinates. This is done by a process called GeoCoding. Some latitude/longitude coordinates have to be approximated and may not be in the exact location of the Alert. For instance, this can happen when only the town name is reported. Below is a list of address types and address component types that can be converted to latitude/longitude coordinates.

street_address	indicates a precise street address.
route	indicates a named route (such as “US 101”).
intersection	indicates a major intersection, usually of two major roads.
political	indicates a political entity. Usually, this type indicates a polygon of some civil administration.
country	indicates the national political entity, and is typically the highest order type returned by the Geocoder.
administrative_area_level_1	indicates a first-order civil entity below the country level. Within the United States, these administrative levels are states. Not all nations exhibit these administrative levels.
administrative_area_level_2	indicates a second-order civil entity below the country level. Within the United States, these administrative levels are counties. Not all nations exhibit these administrative levels.
administrative_area_level_3	indicates a third-order civil entity below the country level. This type indicates a minor civil division. Not all nations exhibit these administrative levels.
colloquial_area	indicates a commonly-used alternative name for the entity.
locality	indicates an incorporated city or town political entity.
sublocality	indicates an first-order civil entity below a locality.
neighborhood	indicates a named neighborhood.
premise	indicates a named location, usually a building or collection of buildings with a common name.
subpremise	indicates a first-order entity below a named location, usually a singular building within a collection of buildings with a common name.
postal_code	indicates a postal code as used to address postal mail within the country.
natural_feature	indicates a prominent natural feature.
airport	indicates an airport.
park	indicates a named park.
point_of_interest	indicates a named point of interest. Typically, these “POI”s are prominent local entities that don’t easily fit in another category such as “Empire State Building” or “Statue of Liberty.”