DATA VISUALIZATION
STORYTELLING
INFORMATION DESIGN
UI DESIGN
BACKGROUND
Population growth and increasing economic development have led to a new era of hydroelectric complexes constructions in developing countries, often firing up enduring controversies. Amongst the most controversial dam projects, the Belo Monte dam complex in Brazil has flared up local and international opposition. Belo Monte is at the centre of a ferocious political, economical, environmental and human rights debate. Deeply involved in corruption scandals embracing Brazilian politics and private corporations, the dam has been inaugurated in 2016 and is currently missing only the last of the three federal licenses needed in order to start operating, with still ongoing court battles.
Belo Monte has already changed forever the city of Altamira, which has become the municipality with the highest number of crimes in the nation, is threatening the Amazonian riverine ecosystem and is deemed to emit an alarming quantity of greenhouse gases. When operative, the dam will completely displace 20,000 people. Yet, the Brazilian Government has deemed more than once the complex necessary for the country’s economical and social growth. Is a country’s prosperity worth the environmental toll caused by the impacts of mega-dams?
What are the topics surrounding dam controversies on Wikipedia?
The map is a Seealsology network of the knowledge surrounding dam controversies according to Wikipedia. The arrangement of the nodes allow one to identify clusters enclosing specific topics. At first glance, it is recognisable that Hydropolitics and Water Issues and Environmental Issues and Controversies are the main subjects that generally surround the debate. Energy Economics is another recurring topic, that interestingly acts often as a bridge between different clusters built around controversies. The size of the clusters and the variety of topics surrounding a seed can tell how wide is the explorable territory for a debate concerning that specific dam.
In this map, one of the most extensive discussion revolves around the Belo Monte Dam, in Brazil, followed by groups of Indian and Ethiopian dams.
Which of the dam controversies spawn the widest interest on Wikipedia?
The Horizon Graph describes the user activity in the last three years on the Wikipedia pages that were used as seeds in the previous protocol. The graph is mirrored in order to show the number of total edits and views for each page in its English and local language version. The dams were clustered in categories according to the status of construction stated in the page, and stacked in them in alphabetical order. Using the number of views and edits as a parameter for measuring the level of controversy on Wikipedia, both in English and in the local languages, allowed to identify the most controversial dams in recent years.
What are the main websites that speak of Belo Monte Dam?
The visualisation describes how Google ranked the first 25 links for the queries “Belo Monte Dam” and “Usina Hidrelétrica de Belo Monte.” Between the query in English and the one in Portuguese, there is a noticeable difference in the website categories. While News are the most recurring for both queries, Environmental Organisations and Human Rights Organisations websites are ranking higher in the English search, and way more recurring. On the other hand, the Brazilian ranking is more heterogeneous, with a wider variety of websites more evenly scattered from top to bottom. In particular, the category of Companies is distinctive of the Brazilian query.
What is the language used by different website categories in reporting Belo Monte?
The words networks show the issues addressed by the websites of the previous protocol in reporting the Belo Monte controversy. It is evident which are the words shared by many websites categories and which ones belong just to one. The size of the words describes the word recurrency, while the position on the map shows how much the word is shared by the websites. It is possible to identify straight away the clusters of exclusive words.
Are websites reporting the same categories of actors?
The alluvial graph shows the most reported actor categories by the website categories identified previously. In contrast with the previous visualisations, international and Brazilian website categories were all displayed together in order to have the most general overview of who is acting in the debate.
The visualisation shows the complexity of the debate through the many actor categories involved in it. It is notable that Companies are the most reported category, followed by Governmental Institutions and Indigenous People.
Who are the most reported actors by websites?
The treemap describes in depth the most reported actors by the websites analysed until now. The size of the actors corresponds with the amount of times its entity is mentioned. It is notable that the actors that are reported to be more involved in the controversy are the Brazilian Government, Ribeirinhos, Norte Energia, the Supreme Federal Court and numerous State or privately owned institutions and companies. Overall, the visualisation shows the wide variety of interests that are represented in the debate, ranging from the political, economical, indigenous and environmental spheres.
What kind of relationships are the actors forming on Facebook and how big is their audience?
The visualisation is a network showing the relationships between the official pages of the main actors involved in the Belo Monte Dam controversy on Facebook. The map shows the number of pages liked by the seeds, making it possible to identify direct networks of interests between the actors themselves and the cluster of pages surrounding them.
The most interesting cluster extrapolated from the map is the one that blends together pages of actors belonging to Governmental Institutions, Political Groups, Financiers and Companies, showing that there is a wide network of interests ongoing between them.