USGS just launched a new science visualization gallery website: Earth is in Flux. The gallery highlights USGS science on our changing environment through interactive data visualizations and illustrations. The gallery was developed by the USGS Vizlab – a data visualization team in the USGS Water Resources Mission Area – in collaboration with USGS scientists in the Ecosystems Mission Area.

The gallery was released in December 2024 and showcases visualizations about two USGS research projects supported by the Ecosystems Mission Area’s Land Change Science Program, with more visualizations featuring USGS science and data to be released in the coming months. 

Both visualization projects highlight long-term ecosystem and climate data collected by Land Change Science program scientists. The VizLab team applied principles of information design and narrative storytelling (and their own creativity) to communicate USGS research and data in a fun and accessible manner. The VizLab developed open source (and reproducible) data processing and visualization pipelines to create the visualizations, so that others can learn and apply similar code to their own datasets to make engaging visuals.

There are already plans to use these visualizations to communicate USGS science to new audiences. Project leads for the Beaufort Sea effort plan to use the visuals when working with and mentoring students at an upcoming science summer camp and teaching them about how paleoclimate data is collected and used. Project leads with the Fire in Ice effort are planning to share the visuals with local community leaders and members in Juneau, Alaska and colleagues with the Juneau Icefield Research Program as part of their continued outreach and relationship building efforts. 

We are thrilled to release these novel and engaging visualizations, which highlight USGS land change science in innovative ways. We are just as excited about the community and skill-building in data visualization we developed along the way and look forward to collaborations with the USGS Vizlab and others in the future.