02 / Data visualization · Canada

Canada’s Carbon Atlas

An interactive exploration of Canada’s greenhouse gas inventory, connecting province and year comparisons with 1,879 reporting facilities from ECCC’s 2024 records.

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Explore the interactive atlas in a new tab.

60-second summary

Problem

National totals, regional patterns, and individual facility records operate at different scales. Tables alone make those relationships difficult to explore and their limits easy to miss.

Role

Data visualization · Interaction design · Prototyping · Responsive web

Pivotal decision

Use a terrain map as a shared geographic foundation, with separate chapters for inventory comparisons, reporting facilities, and carbon capture explanations.

Working prototype

A responsive atlas with province and year selection, industry-coloured facility markers, search and record details, capture explanations, and adjustable appearance settings.

Canada terrain map with national emissions by sector and selected-year comparison charts — 01Interactive emissions atlas
Geographic context, sector comparisons, and change over time share one exploration surface.

Decisions and system thinking

Move between national patterns and individual places

Each chapter answers a different question while keeping the source and reporting scale visible.

01 / Inventory comparisons

Start with the bigger picture.

Select Canada, a province, or a territory, then compare inventory years and emissions by sector. Consistent chart scales support comparison; missing values remain unavailable rather than appearing as zero.

02 / Reporting facilities

Find the places behind the records.

Search facilities, cities, or industries and filter by province or territory. Industry colours connect map markers to results and record details. The 2024 snapshot contains 1,879 facilities; 1,863 have coordinates available to plot.

03 / Capture and appearance

Make context part of exploration.

An explanatory flow covers capture, transport, storage, and use. Sources and limitations remain accessible alongside daylight, night, weather, surface, and motion settings that adapt the experience to personal preferences.

Facility exploration chapter with industry-coloured markers across Canada and searchable reporting records — 02Industry colours identify facility groups, while search and record details reveal reported emissions.

Carbon capture chapter with capture, transport, storage, and use stages over the Canada terrain map, with geological storage selected — 03The capture journey explains transport, storage, and use while distinguishing captured tonnes from capacity and net avoided emissions.

Exploration workflow

Follow a question from inventory to facility

01Select Canada, a province, or a territory
02Compare inventory years and sectors
03Open the reporting facilities chapter
04Search or filter facilities and select a result or marker
05Inspect the record, reporting scope, and published source

Source and interpretation

Different reporting scales, clearly identified

Inventory data comes from ECCC’s National Inventory for 1990–2024 and excludes land use and forestry. Facility data is a separate 2024 reporting snapshot, with 1,879 unique records and 16 records without coordinates. Facility emissions cover a different reporting population and must not be added to national totals. Facility trends require additional reporting years. Carbon capture is an explanatory flow, and the optional weather layer shows current modelled conditions at Canadian capitals, with timestamps and a labelled snapshot fallback. Weather is separate from historical emissions.

Design contribution

What I contributed across the product workflow

Geographic and emissions information design
Province, territory, and year comparison flows
Industry-coloured facility markers and searchable records
Facility detail and source attribution
Carbon capture explanatory flow
Glass controls and responsive exploration surfaces
Appearance settings and data-limit communication

ECCC facility greenhouse gas reporting dataset