In December 2010, Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB), a local youth initiative in the city, contacted Transparent Chennai to see if TC could, in any way, help strengthen a proposal that they were sending to the Chennai Corporation on the need for dustbins and toilets on Elliots and Valmiki beaches. A methodology for data creation was devised that would benefit both organizations. For ROB, it was the creation of spatially precise data that buttressed the need for dustbins and toilets, and for TC, it served as a starting point for infrastructure and pollution mapping of Chennai’s coastline. This blogpost will tell our readers about how the data created helped strengthen ROB’s proposal to the Chennai Corporation.
Dustbins and Toilets on the Beach:
ROB’s campaign, which involves placing dustbins and toilets on the beach as a first step towards a healthier beach environment, led them to a meeting with the Chennai Corporation, a civic body responsible for maintenance of public spaces and amenities in the city among other things. The meeting ended with the corporation suggesting that ROB submit a proposal stating the nature of problem and related demands concerning Chennai’s beaches.
While thrilled at the opportunity to come up with a sound proposal that would put dustbins and toilets on the beach they soon realized that it was not an easy task to create a convincing proposal especially since they were an unregistered organization. The need to make their proposal more persuasive was why they initially contacted TC.
TC and ROB:
At TC, a methodology was devised for obtaining information on the formal and informal uses of Elliots and Valmiki Beaches that would help ROB to: 1. help reinforce the need for dustbins and toilets; 2. provide insight into the most effective locations for the same.
How so? Let us explain by using Elliots beach as an example.
While ROB already had data on the amount of trash along the coastline, this data was repackaged to spatially showcase how dirty the beach was during different days and times. We did this by mapping sites where trash had accumulated on different days to get a spatial sense of the problem. In our study, a trash accumulation site was defined as any area where more than 5 pieces of trash were found together.
These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Monday 20/11/2010
These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Sunday 02/01/2011
As you can see, these maps provide a strong spatial representation of the problem of trash on Elliots beach. What’s even better is by overlaying this data with the existing neelmetal dumpsters and government operated dustbins in the area, one can easily see how the present waste management system is inadequate.
Similar representations of informal urine hotspots were mapped and overlaid with information of public toilet facilities in the area to present the need for more toilets.
To help in locating ideal places for trash bins a heat map containing a point density algorithm was used to spatially show the most concentrations of trash thereby showing where trash bins would be most useful.
Example heat map using the trash accumulation data obtained on 20/11/2010
The same methodology was used to stress the need for toilets as well. We hope that these maps will help ROB’s proposal to the Corporation and eventually result in more dustbins and toilets on the beach.
Go to Build A Map feature on our website to explore our Beach Layer! Please do write to us and give us feedback on our methodology.
- Siddharth Hande
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Hi Siddharth,
Could you put up bigger versions of the maps? It’s a bit hard to tell exactly where the different spots on the beach are. How exactly did you map real-world locations to points on the map? Were volunteers given GPS trackers or something like that?
Also, do you record differences between trash that is likely to have been dumped by vendors on the beach compared to visitors? Is the infrastructure you want the Corporation to add aimed at visitors, vendors or both?
March 8, 2011 at 8:33 pmHi Navaneethan,
To view these maps properly please see the ‘build a map’ section on our website and click on the beach layer.
You will also be able to see the additional information that we have collected pertaining to both Elliots and Valmiki Beach.
To answer your questions-
1. While figuring out a methodology we realized that since the area being mapped was quite small our GPS trackers which usually have an error of 5 to 20 metres depending on different variables were not required and instead locations of trash were mapped on a paper print out of the beach taken from google earth.
These paper maps were then digitized and uploaded on to our website. We felt that in this case not only was our error margin insignificant but because this methodology is low tech it can be replicated by different groups and individuals who might not necessarily have a GPS tracker available to them.
2. Since the aim of our study was to buttress the need for dustbins and toilets (aimed at both vendors and visitors) as well as to suggest locations, we did not focus on the source of trash but rather how much was there. The heatmaps that can be viewed on our website help in the identification of locations.
If you are interested in knowing more or would like to try this out on another stretch of beach please let me know and I can send you a detailed methodology.
Hope this helps.
Sid.
March 9, 2011 at 1:13 pm