This story map created with ESRI’s ArcGIS Online StoryMaps, provides an example of how Human Rights Watch can display reports in a more interactive and immersive form. Story maps allow organizations, like HRW, to tie together spatial data and findings from their research in an engaging narrative flow. This allows readers to be immersed in the narrative of the report and to interact more deeply with geographic data.
Below is a classic ArcGIS StoryMap of an abridged version of the Human Rights Watch’s report “The Air is Unbearable'': Health Impacts of Deforestation-Related Fires in the Brazilian Amazon. This report highlights the work of HRW to track the impact of deforestation on the health of Brazilians living within the Brazilian Amazon. The text in this StoryMap is adapted from this report, with the footnotes within the StoryMap corresponding to the footnotes of the original HRW report
. For the interactive maps, we focused on the state of Rondonia which is heavily featured as a case-study in the HRW report. Data used to create these maps was obtained from Sistema de Informações Ambientais
--from whom the HRW obtained the particulate matter data for the original report--and from the Amazonian Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information.
Throughout the StoryMap you will find three interactive maps created using ArcGIS Online: Deforestation, Fire Frequency, and PM 2.5 concentration. Displaying these maps alongside the narrative from the HRW report allows users to engage more deeply with the information they are reading about--connecting numbers to recognizable locations and in turn creating a deeper emotional impact on the readers.
To utilize and create ArcGIS StoryMaps as an organizational tool requires a subscription to ArcGIS Online Services. However once published, StoryMaps can be made available to the general public. StoryMaps can be embedded within existing websites, or can be viewed externally on ArcGIS Online. Taking advantage of the immersive nature of StoryMaps can elevate your user experience and help deliver the powerful stories the Human Rights Watch are sharing.
View the StoryMap below, or through ArcGIS StoryMaps here.