IEEE VIS 2024 Content: CPIE: A Spatiotemporal Visual Analytic Tool to Explore the Impact of Coal Pollution

CPIE: A Spatiotemporal Visual Analytic Tool to Explore the Impact of Coal Pollution

Sichen Jin - Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, United States

Lucas Henneman - George Mason University, Fairfax, United States

Jessica Roberts - Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, United States

Room: Bayshore VI

2024-10-14T16:00:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-14T16:00:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
The user interface of CPIE shows the coal pollution impacts when Pennsylvania is selected. It consists of (A) a choropleth map view highlighting facilities in Pennsylvania and showing statewide deaths associated with all facilities in Pennsylvania, (B) a choropleth map displaying the number of deaths in Pennsylvania attributable to facilities in other states, and (C) a stacked line chart showing the changes in deaths associated with all Pennsylvania facilities from 1999 to 2020.
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Abstract

This paper introduces CPIE (Coal Pollution Impact Explorer), a spatiotemporal visual analytic tool developed for interactive visualization of coal pollution impacts. CPIE visualizes electricity-generating units (EGUs) and their contributions to statewide Medicare deaths related to coal PM2.5 emissions. The tool is designed to make scientific findings on the impacts of coal pollution more accessible to the general public and to raise awareness of the associated health risks. We present three use cases for CPIE: 1) the overall spatial distribution of all 480 facilities in the United States, their statewide impact on excess deaths, and the overall decreasing trend in deaths associated with coal pollution from 1999 to 2020; 2) the influence of pollution transport, where most deaths associated with the facilities located within the same state and neighboring states but some deaths occur far away; and 3) the effectiveness of intervention regulations, such as installing emissions control devices and shutting down coal facilities, in significantly reducing the number of deaths associated with coal pollution.