Case Study Overview Photovoltaics convert solar energy into direct current. You can understand the photovoltaic market in the United States by estimating the installed capacity (or maximum possible amount) of photovoltaic energy. It’s also important to understand how the prices of hardware and soft costs (including installation costs) related to photovoltaics change over time. The Open […]
Case Study Overview Landslides occur in all 50 states, costing lives and billions of dollars in damage each year. Although no federal agency systematically tracks landslide occurrence, the information is needed to test landslide hazard models and improve our understanding of landslides and their impacts. In response, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landslide Hazards Program developed […]
Case Study Overview Not so long ago, the first thing that most people did after feeling an earthquake was to turn on their radio for information. That practice is changing. After the 2003 San Simeon earthquake in central California, many peopled logged on to the Internet to get information and to share their own experiences. […]
Case Study Overview For hundreds of years, amateur naturalists — the citizen scientists of their day — recorded seasonal events such as flowering in spring or bird migrations in fall. In the late 1950s, for example, volunteers across the country mailed their observations about lilacs and honeysuckles to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2007, […]
Case Study Overview When a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, map data critical for response efforts were incomplete and hard to access. In a matter of days, hundreds of volunteers created the map for Port au Prince in OpenStreetMap, greatly facilitating recovery efforts. High-quality geographic data helps organizations and communities make important environmental, economic […]
Case Study Overview Swine flu … avian flu … everyone knows of diseases that can infect both animals and people. Nearly three-quarters of newly described diseases in people are estimated to have originated in animals. These and other animal diseases foreign to the United States can have serious consequences for animal health — and possibly […]