Where's the Water?

Intention

Pittsburgh is known for having Three Rivers flow throughout the city. with an abundance of freshwater circulating the metropolis, this Cartograph experiments with identifying where water is used in an aesthetic and recreational sense.

Collection

Utilizing a grouping of Data from WPRDC, the Cartograph utilizes Allegheny County and Pittsburgh City Park data, Allegheny Hydrology, Watershed, Major Rivers, Greenways, Pools, and Water features. Due to the limits of Carto (max 8 datasets) I could not explore other data sets of interest: FEMA Flood Zones, etc.

Analysis

The Dataset explores the relationships between pervious spaces and waterways, where water is retained but also where is it utilized for leisure. A lot of water is used in recreational fashion around the city. These water features seem to be grouped in neighborhood parks and County Parks. For example in the neighborhood of interest Oakland, Schenley Park has a high concentration of water features. The intent of drawing citizens to open space is not lost/clearly evident from this analysis.

Product

Overall the Map reveals clustering within the Oakland portion of Shadyside. There are some oddities in this data, I tried to utilize snow route centerlines to see potential locations where the snow goes/gets dumped within the city, I'm not sure if that was 100% positive. Additionally, I'm not sure if this map is abstracted enough, I would prefer more abstraction, but was limited by my current knowledge of coding (low/non-existent) and time.

Reflection

There is a middle ground that must be respected when it comes to representing data and accuracy. If your map gets too abstract, readers will have a hard time interpreting your data, but if it is abstract/distorted it has the chance at becoming less informative and more figurative, allowing for the aesthetic to be enjoyed as art and not data.

It is my impression that data can be enjoyed in the form of Art as a basis for an exploration into what it can reveal without intent. Just like the current exhibit in the Miller Gallery, Designing the Computational Image/Imagining Computational Design.