How to explore OpenTEK's content

OpenTEK allows you to explore Local Indicators of Climate Change Impacts (LICCI) from different viewpoints, either from

• Article reviews: scientific articles that document first hand observations
• Local Observations: Contributions by anyone in the world- including YOU!
• Field studies: Data collected by selected partner researchers of the LICCI project

The platform helps you navigate this information by mapping and listing long-term climatical changes that are occurring in different regions.

Depending on your field of interest, filters, layers and other search options have been developed, so that you can choose the type of changes you want to visualize/explore.

You can also download the entries/content that you have filtered.

Map

The map in OpenTEK enhances the geographical visualization of the data in order to have a clear understanding of the changes occuring in a variety of climate zones and regions, and at the same time, to effectively localize the climatical observations.

There are two sections to take into account when navigating through the map.

Firstly, the legend can be found on the top right of the map, where you can select one or multiple types of data you would like to explore.

Secondly, the layers can be found on the top left side of the map, by clicking on the round green icon, where you can select some secondary geographical information you can visualize in the map.

Legend

• Local observation: By selecting this entry type, you will visualize long-term observations that have been contributed directly by local people and communities living all around the world. These observations are tagged with red points on the map.
• Field study: By selecting this entry type, you can explore a collection of primary data obtained by LICCI researchers through semi structured interviews and focus group discussions with local people and communities. These entries are scientific interpretations of local observations people have reported, and are tagged with dark green points on the map.
• Article Review: By selecting this entry type, you can find summaries of previously published scientific articles which have been thoroughly reviewed and classified into the LICCI tree classification system. Links to each article are also available on each entry, so that you can read the original full text. The article reviews are the light green points in the map.

Layers

• Climate types: This feature allows you to visualize secondary data about climate zones, that are distinguished in contrasting colors following the Köppen-Geiger climate classification.

• Region labels: By selecting region labels, you can visualize secondary data on place names (e.g., country or town names).

• Indigenous Territories: On selecting territories, you can visualize different Indigenous territories sourced from the initiative Native land. These ancestral territories are connected to the Indigenous people, their culture, and their identity as a nation. This map does not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any Indigenous nations. To learn about definitive boundaries, contact the nations in question.

Entry list

The entry list displays a list of all the platform content in detail. With its "search and filter" feature, you can fully navigate and explore the platform according to your needs. You could either write on the search bar the specific information you are trying to retrieve or use the filters to narrow-down your search.

Each entry is represented by an icon of its creator, a round colored dot, that indicates the entry type and its title. Below this heading you see the tags the entry has, depending on the LICCIs that are included in the entry. Entries of the types Article Review and Field studies can include many tags, since one entry of these type can include many Observations. Local Observations only include one Observation and therefor only one LICCI tag. There will also be one (or more) tags that indicate the climatic zone (see above).

Search bar

Here you can enter specific search terms (e.g., drought, livestock disease, soil fertility) to retrieve relevant information for your queries. If you have not previously selected a specific filter from the legend box, all reports within the LICCI database will be shown.

Filters

• Language: There is currently two languages available to select, English and Spanish. More languages might become available with time (see our languages guide section here). When choosing this filter, you can find the entries in their original language.

• Entry type: Using this filter you can change the nature of the listing depending on your interests, such as local observations, article reviews, or field studies. This filter is synchronized with the Legend you find on the map. The Legend can be an always visible shortcut to this filter.

• Tags: Based on the entry types you have chosen previously (local observations/article reviews/field studies), you can select tags from those tag groups which are used in at least one of the selected entry type.

  • When selecting all three entry types all of the tag groups are available.
  • When the entry type Local Observation is selected the tag groups General LICCI tree and Koeppen geiger climate classification are available.
  • When Article review and/or Field study are selected the groups Koeppen geiger climate classification and LICCI Tree are available.

Beware that entries can currently only be filtered using one tag group: LICCI Tree / General LICCI tree / Koeppen geiger climate classification.

• Systems: This filter is a shortcut for searching entries based on the two trees mentioned above. You can select one or more of the colored icons to filter entries reporting impacts in a given system of the LICCI tree. To learn more about what each system indicates, you can go to the LICCI tree classification system.
  • Climatic system
    Entries related to changes in temperature, rain, droughts, clouds, humidity storms and the seasons are presented.
  • Physical system
    Entries related to changes in oceans and seas, coasts, lakes, land, earthquakes, snow and ice are presented
  • Biological system
    Entries linked to changes in wild living beings (except humans) and their environment are presented.
  • Social/economic/cultural system
    Entries linked to changes in livelihood activities and human societies/culture are presented.

Downloading entries

Only public entries entries are available for download and people downloading an entry should follow the license requirements specific of that entry (e.g., Creative Commons license selected when creating a Local Observation.

In order to download an entry you have to be registered and logged in. Then you can go to a specific entry and download it in json format.

We are working on other data sharing features that will facilitate the download/use of OpenTEK data by users, communities, policy makers or researchers.

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