Map of Western Europe comparing the PM2.5 air pollution against the Number of Power Plants

Visual Design
#1

Welcome,
For my data visualization assignment at Swansea University, I am assigned to produce various data visualizations involving the global power plant database.
The visualization below shows a map of Western Europe that displays the number of power plants compared to the average PM2.5 air pollution in each country in 2017.

Image:

image
image2126×1236 486 KB

Source:


https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.PM25.MC.M3

Visual Design Type: Colour Indicative Map
Name of Tool: Tableau
Countries involved: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Year: 2017

Visual Mapping:
X-axis: Longitude
Y-axis: Latitude
Number Labels: Number of power plants
Detail: Country name
Colour: Average PM2.5 air pollution (ug/m3)

Data Preparation:
I used two different data sources, one for all power plants in each country and one for the average PM2.5 air pollution in each country. Therefore I had to unify both data sources together based on the country names so that I can show the number of power plants and air pollution of each country on the map.

Unique Observation:
The map shows that the UK and France both have an extremely high number of power plants and the highest air pollution compared to the other countries.
Germany has a moderate amount of power plants and has relatively cleaner air than the UK and France.
The rest of the countries within Western Europe have even fewer numbers of power plants and much cleaner air.
A growing trend can be seen where the more power plants there are in a country, the average amount of air pollution will become higher.

Questions:

  • Does the visualization clearly show the data and trend?

  • Can the visualization be changed or improved to show the data more accurately?

  • Is the colour choice suitable for this visualization?

#2

He visualization seems to convey the information disclosed in the description incredibly well! A positive trend can be seen between the number of power stations and air pollution.

For visualization of the colour scale, it may be better to set colour steps rather than a colour transition, since it can be easier to group and separate the data more easily as well as for colour blind people. It may also be better to set the lower bound at zero rather than he minimum value so there is a stable lower bound.

It may be cool to see whether an increase in renewable power stations woyld lower air pollution, as in the future as renewable power station overtake non renewable, the number of power ststion will correlate less and less with air pollution as energy becomes cleaner.

Awesome visualization! Keep it up!