# data[].attributes.body
Hearing from the RSPB on their role in protecting biodiversity, along with a video tutorial on how to make your own bird feeder from home! Also hearing from Eastern region on what is being done to effectively manage our local wildlife.

# data[].attributes.headline
RSPB - How to make your own homemade bird feeder

# data[].attributes.subject
RSPB - How to make your own homemade bird feeder

# data[].attributes.headline
Make your own pledge to the environment here!

# data[].attributes.subject
Make your own pledge to the environment here!

# data[].attributes.body
Take two mins to fill out this form and pledge to do your bit to help your local environment in whatever way suits you best :)

# data[].attributes.body
Links to Teams Live attached to PDF

# data[].attributes.body
Follow the link to our competition page to find out all you need to know to enter and potentially win some prizes from the Tree Council

# data[].attributes.body
Most of us grow up not giving a second thought to how our food ended up on our plates, but making a few simple shifts in the way we purchase our foods can have a big impact on our health and, by extension, the environment.

# data[].attributes.body
Learning from the Marine Biological Association about the impact of plastic on our oceans and its ecosystem. Along with a talk from the North West & Central region on circular economy projects.

# data[].attributes.body
A panel-style event where representatives from the transport sector show what they are each doing to adapt to climate change.

# data[].attributes.body
We hear from the Tree Council on their role in restoring our ecosystem and how you can get involved too through volunteering opportunities.

# data[].attributes.body
Learning about what World Environment Day is, Network Rail's environmental roles & responsibilities and how we make our land use sustainable.

# data[].attributes.headline
Environment & Sustainability Strategy 2020

# data[].attributes.subject
Environment & Sustainability Strategy 2020

# data[].attributes.headline
Download the WWF's My Footprint App, your hub for positive environmental change!

# data[].attributes.subject
Download the WWF's My Footprint App, your hub for positive environmental change!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Extreme weather, forest fires and the global pandemic have made us all stop and consider - what we can start to do to help our planet.

We've seen the devastating impact that human activity can have on the natural world, but it doesn't have to be this way. We can build a better world by all making small changes in our everyday lives.

Start by calculating your footprint to really understand your personal impact.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover challenges and tips to help you reduce your impact on the environment today. Available for iOS and Android devices.

# data[].attributes.headline
Learn more about what you can do to help in ecosystem restoration!

# data[].attributes.subject
Learn more about what you can do to help in ecosystem restoration!

# data[].attributes.headline
Measure your own carbon footprint and learn about what you can do to reduce it

# data[].attributes.subject
Measure your own carbon footprint and learn about what you can do to reduce it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Calculate your environmental footprint and learn how you can reduce your impact with WWF’s Footprint Calculator.

# data[].attributes.headline
How can YOU stop deforestation overseas?

# data[].attributes.subject
How can YOU stop deforestation overseas?

# data[].attributes.body
1. Change their diets to buy more sustainable and ethical food (see below)

2. Buy fairly sourced timber and paper.

3. Ask their pension provider to check that their pension funds are being ethically invested and not invested in companies driving deforestation

4. Raise awareness about the problem of deforestation with your colleagues, your friends  and your local community.

5. Contact your local Member of Parliament  to ask for them to take action.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Making Wales a Deforestation Free Nation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
1. Develop a measure for the greenhouse gas emissions associated with overseas deforestation caused by commodities and products that are imported into Wales. This measure should be considered as part of the Welsh Government's second carbon budget (2021-2026), and in the setting of the Well-being of Future Generations Act National Well-being Indicators and Milestones 2.

# data[].attributes.headline
What you can do to help wildlife within your garden

# data[].attributes.subject
What you can do to help wildlife within your garden

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From building a bug hotel to creating a garden pond, here are some ideas for things you can do yourself at home to help wildlife.

# data[].attributes.headline
Article: The rise in ocean plastics evidenced from a 60-year time series

# data[].attributes.subject
Article: The rise in ocean plastics evidenced from a 60-year time series

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Plastics have become a global concern as the accumulation in the world's oceans has become apparent, and potential health risks have been highlighted1,2,3,4. The use of man-made material for producing netting and fishing products became widespread in the 1950s, when these slow-degrading materials were made readily available and affordable5,6. Since this period, there has been a rapid increase in plastic production for a wide range of uses, and a number of environmental impacts have been highlighted3,6,7,8. Due to their very slow degradation periods, plastics have become ubiquitous and have been associated with marine health impacts7 such as entanglement9, ingestion10,11, the potential dispersal of invasive species and toxicity12, and contamination through trophic levels13. Comparable long-term environmental datasets of plastic debris are few and far between4, with widespread data of sea surface plastic debris (particularly large plastic debris) being virtually non-existent7. Despite the increase in production of plastics and the consequent disposal, studies that have investigated open ocean plastic time series have been unable to show the expected increase since the 1990s14,15,16,17.

Since 1957, the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) has been towed over 6.5 million nautical miles in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas. The primary purpose of the CPR has been to record pelagic plankton, for which it is has been doing so since 1931 using ships-of-opportunity. Thompson et al.14 used this historical record, to retrospectively count the amount of microplastics (plastic <5 mm)3 within CPR samples along two transects in the northeast Atlantic. This study indicated a significant increase in microplastics from 1960-70 to 1980-1990, however no significant trend was observed between the 1980s and the 1990s14. The CPR consists of a torpedo shaped metal housing around a mechanical gear-shifted advancing mesh to collect and store the plankton, this design and technology has remained consistent since its inception in 193118. The CPR is towed off the back of ships-of-opportunity, such as ferries and container ships, at ~7 m depth and from 10-20 knots speed18. In this sense, the CPR is susceptible to entanglement in a similar way to marine mammals that spend time in surface waters. When the CPR mechanism is hauled back on to the ship, the crew report any issues, such as entanglement on to a tow log, these are also noted and reported upon return to the CPR maintenance workshop.

Here we present a consistent time series from 1957 to 2016, of oceanic plastic occurrence in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas, and our findings on the localisation, properties, and temporal trends of these plastics. This dataset presents some of the earliest records of open ocean plastic entanglement, and confirms a significant increase in open ocean plastics since the 1990s7,14,15,16,17.

Observations

Results presented here are based on observations that have been recorded as faults within a tow log for each CPR that has been towed within the North Atlantic and adjacent seas. 36% of the total number of CPR tows between 1957 and 2016 (16,725 tows) had faults logged, 4% of these faults were due to plastic entanglement and 1% were due to natural entanglement (see Methods and Supplementary information for further detail). Items were considered as macroplastic (plastic >5 mm)3 if they were large enough to become entangled on the CPR, and described an assumed plastic item (see Supplementary Data 1 for each individual entanglement description).

Macroplastics over the record

Our analysis reveals an increase in macroplastic entanglement on the CPR since the first instance in 1957 (Fig. 1). In order to compare items that were not man-made a text search was also carried out for natural items, such as seaweed and wood that were reported to be entangled on the CPR (see Methods and Supplementary Data 2). Although there are gaps in both datasets, with more data being collected in the last 3 decades, the occurrence of natural items becoming entangled on the CPR remains consistent throughout the time series (Fig. 1a), and there was no significant correlation found between macroalgal entanglements and macroplastic entanglements (Student's t-test p-value < 0.05). The occurrence of macroplastic entanglement on the CPR shows a clear increasing trend with an order of magnitude increase from 2000 onwards (Fig. 1a, b). The records of macroplastics that became entangled on the CPR from 1957 to 2016 have a significant positive linear trend (standard model I linear regression) of 0.057 ± 0.0066 (Student's t-test p-value < 0.001 that trend is significantly different from zero), while there is no significant trend for the natural items (Fig. 1a). Figure 1b indicates a significant increase in macroplastics between the 1950s-60s, and the 1970-80 s, and both the 1990s and 2000s, respectively. Although we can not be sure on the trend until we have data for the whole decade in order to ensure comparability, 2010 to 2016 shows no significant change in total macroplastic counts compared to the 2000s.

Total macroplastic and natural counts of entanglement. a annual counts of macroplastic = light blue bars (significant trend = 0.057 ± 0.0066 (1S.D.)), and natural items = grey bars (non-significant trend = 0.0045 ± 0.0028 (1S.D.)). The cumulative sum of the total counts of macroplastic are plotted on the second y-axis in green. b total counts of macroplastic per decade plotted as a box and whisker plot, where the median is represented by a blue circle, the edges of the box are the 25th and 75th percentiles, the whiskers extend to the most extreme data points, and outliers are plotted individually as red crosses. Please note there are only 3 years of data for the 1950s (1957-1959) and only 7 years of data for the 2010s (2010-2016). The annual counts of entanglements observed have been normalised to a percentage frequency of occurrence per Continuous Plankton Recorder tow (%)

Regional trends and marine litter types

The first record of man-made entanglement on the CPR was in 1957, recorded as recorder fouled by trawl twine, off the east coast of Iceland (Fig. 2). The second earliest record of man-made entanglement on the CPR was recorded as a plastic bag in 1965 off the Northwest of Ireland, this is the first mention of a specific plastic type becoming entangled on the CPR. The area that has the highest occurrence of macroplastic entanglement on the CPR is in the southern North Sea (Fig. 2, please see Supplementary Figs. 1- 4 in the supplementary information for a regional break-down of trends). In the open ocean of the North Atlantic mostly netting, line and rope are reported (Fig. 2). The most commonly reported macroplastic within the CPR tow log is line (Supplementary Fig. 5). The term line is often reported as fishing line, with fishing net also being a main contributor to entanglement and becoming more prevalent in the tow logs since the early 1990s (Fig. 3, Supplementary Fig. 5 and Supplementary Data 1). Fishing gear was investigated by searching for the following terms; fishing, monofilament, trawl, and hook. Figure 3 indicates that the number of entanglements due to fishing related gear have increased, and that 55% of the total entanglements recorded are from fishing gear (see Supplementary Data 1). There is also evidence of a decline in the entanglement records of plastic bags since 2000 (Fig. 3). Applying the regions defined in Supplementary Fig. 1, a non-parametric (permutation-based) multivariate analysis of variance (perMANOVA) was carried out using the Fathom Matlab toolbox19, which revealed a significant relationship ( p-value < 0.05) between both year and region with litter category (see Methods for more detail). The majority of CPR tows were completed in the North Sea and Wider Atlantic area, giving greater statistical confidence in these areas (Supplementary Fig. 2). The increase in fishing related plastic entanglements, particularly in the North Sea region, contributed most significantly to the increase seen in macroplastic entanglements in the last 2 decades (Supplementary Fig. 4). Three of the five regions (Supplementary Fig. 1) presented a significant increasing trend in macroplastic entanglement (Student's t-test p-value < 0.001, Supplementary Fig. 3), with both the Bay of Biscay/Iberian Coast and the Arctic region giving a non-significant trend due to the lack of observations in these areas (Supplementary Fig. 2a, e). A similarity percentage (SIMPER) analysis19 determined that the percentage contribution between the litter types to the change in macroplastic counts over time were 44.86% due to fishing related plastics, 44.67% due to other (fishing not specified) plastic types, and 10.48% due to plastic bags.

Map of macroplastics in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas. Map showing the location of Continuous Plankton Recorder samples since 1957 shown as grey points, black circles = macroplastic occurrence that has not been categorized, red circles = netting, blue circles = line, yellow circles = rope, green circles = bag, pink circles = monofilament, and cyan circles = string. The location of the two earliest records of macroplastic are annotated with the year they were recorded and black arrows. Note: The white area are where no data are available

Annual macroplastic counts in categories from 1957 to 2016. Timeseries plot for four categories (total, fishing specified, fishing not specified, bag specified) of macroplastic entanglements from 1957 to 2016, with all macroplastics observed included in the total category. The annual counts of macroplastics observed have been normalised to a percentage frequency of occurrence per Continuous Plankton Recorder tow (%)

Our findings are the first to confirm the expected significant increase in plastics in the open ocean since the 1990s7,14,15,16,17. We have presented a significant increase in macroplastics from 1957 to 2016 (Fig. 1), which agrees with the exponential increase in total plastic production worldwide3. It has been suggested that there may be a sink of plastic items within global oceans, which could have led to reduced estimates of sea surface plastics and have implications for plastic pollution7,17. Perhaps the reason we have been able to show the expected increase, is because the focus of this work has been on larger plastic items that entangle on the CPR. It should be noted that these larger plastics (macroplastics) break down under ultra-violet light and mechanical forces within the ocean, leading to smaller fragments forming microplastics20, therefore they have the potential to be a proxy for a wide-range of plastic sizes within the oceans.

There are very few historical records of oceanic plastic occurrence, in particular time series of macroplastics, with the most common reporting stemming from ingestion studies of seabirds and sea turtles3,5,11,21,22,23,24,25. In 1947 the earliest known reporting of entanglement was documented, when a herring gull was impeded by a piece of string5,26. However, it is uncertain if this string was made of plastic or natural fibres. In this study we have presented two early records of entanglement, one from 1957 when trawl twine was caught on the CPR and one in 1965 from plastic bag entanglement. The observations of trawl twine is synonymous with the widespread use of plastic for fishing practices in the 1950s as plastic became economical and more efficient to use than natural fibres5,6. Therefore although we cannot confirm that the twine was made from plastic, it is likely, as it was recorded in the late 1950s and was specified as trawl twine. The record of a plastic bag entangled on the CPR in 1965 is within the same decade as the first known recordings of plastic entanglement and ingestion by seabirds21,22,23, and marine turtles7,24,25, which were observed in the late 1960s.

The data presented in Fig. 2 demonstrate that macroplastic debris are found throughout the North Atlantic. More macroplastic entanglements occurred in high-density shipping route areas, than areas of the open ocean such as the eastern North Atlantic, this could be due to the increased presence of human activity6 introducing large plastic items to those areas (Fig. 2, and www.marinetraffic.com). Although the first record of man-made entanglement on the CPR in 1957 was recorded in Arctic waters (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 1), we do not find a significant increase in macroplastic entanglements (Supplementary Fig. 3e), this is due to an increased number of CPR tows in the last decade in Arctic waters and our normalisation method employed to remove sampling bias (see methods for normalisation method and Supplementary Fig. 2e). However, we do record a peak in macroplastic entanglement cases in Arctic waters between 2009-2011 (Supplementary Fig. 3e), which corresponds with a significant increase in macroplastics between 2002-2014 seen at two stations at the HAUSGARTEN observatory in the Arctic27. Although not a significant increase, there were more plastic entanglement cases reported during January and December than any other month, suggesting that winter conditions such as high winds, rainfall and river run-off, may have increased the amount of plastics within the oceans (Supplementary Fig. 4). This could partly explain the distribution of macroplastics seen in Fig. 2, where more entanglements have occurred near coastal and riverine input areas, such as the southern North Sea and the English Channel (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 4, perMANOVA p-value < 0.0519). These areas are also more likely to be impacted by anthropogenic pollution due to their close proximity to human populations6.

Macroplastic items such as line and string are more likely to cause entanglement due to their shape (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 5). Our findings suggest that man-made entanglement from fishing related gear has significantly increased in recent decades (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Fig. 4), and could be more likely in areas such as the North Sea than the open ocean of the North Atlantic, where higher occurrences of macroplastics were reported to be entangled on the CPR (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 4, perMANOVA p-value < 0.0519). Although very few recreational fisheries are monitored in the North Sea, and commercial fish landings have reduced overall since the 1970s, data from the ICES fisheries overview indicates that pelagic trawl/seine fishing gear landings have increased since 2003 to 2015 in the North Sea28. The North Sea has large seabird and seal populations, as well as cetaceans, that are likely to have encountered plastic items and are at increasingly higher risk of entanglement29,30.

As the global population continues to increase, plastic waste will continue to grow31. The realisation that plastics are ubiquitous, and that the consequent health impacts are yet to be fully understood, has increased the awareness surrounding plastics. Plastics are likely to be used as an indicator of marine health in environmental monitoring to drive policy (e.g. the Marine Strategy Framework Directive32). However, progression to reduce the inputs of plastic into the ocean is required7,33,34. There is a need for re-education, continued research and awareness campaigns, in order to drive action from the individual as well as large-scale decisions on waste-management and product design4,33,34,35. The use of ships-of-opportunity is an efficient (both in cost and time) way of covering vast areas, and should be utilised further to develop standardised and consistent strategies for monitoring plastic debris in the oceans7. The dataset presented here is an important historical record for the continued monitoring of plastics in the ocean, and confirms the importance of actions to reduce and improve plastic waste.

Data processing

The observations presented within this manuscript are recorded within a digital database that dates back to 1957, they are descriptive comments with information recorded on the location, date and time that the CPR was towed. This information was gathered and categorized using a series of text queries to search for any words that are associated with man-made products within the tow logs, and to filter for those that are true cases of entanglement ( n = 208). To extract observations of entanglement on the CPR via man-made items, the following words were used for a text search within the fault comments of the CPR database; plastic, net, line, rope, bag, fishing, twine, polyprop, monofilament, nylon, string. The observations that were extracted from the macroplastic search were checked for true cases of entanglement by manually reading through each extraction (see Supplementary Data 1 for all records). In order to compare these observations with items you might expect naturally to be found within the ocean that can entangle the CPR, the following words were used in a separate text search of the faults; seaweed, wood, fish, eel, bird (see Supplementary Data 2). For regional analyses the location of the end of the CPR tow was used to divide the dataset by region (see Supplementary Fig. 1), as this is more likely to be closer to the entanglement origination than the start of the CPR tow. The software package Matlab was used to process, carry out statistical analyses, and visualise the data presented. The investigation of linear trends within this study used standard model I linear regressions, and Student's t-test p-value < 0.001 to determine if the trend was significantly different from zero. Correlation analyses used the Pearson's correlation using a Student's t distribution to determine the p-value. The Fathom toolbox19 was used within Matlab to carry out a non-parametric (permutation-based) multivariate analysis of variance (perMANOVA) using a three-way Model III ANOVA with no replication, grouped by the litter type to investigate the trends between region (see Supplementary Fig. 1), month, and year of each macroplastic entanglement (see Supplementary Fig. 4). The Fathom toolbox19 was also used within Matlab to carry out a similarity percentage (SIMPER) analysis, to investigate the contribution of different litter types to the change in macroplastic entanglements.

Normalisation

A CPR tow is defined by when and where the ships' crew deploy (start of tow) and haul (end of tow) the CPR. Although the CPR is most commonly towed up to 480 nautical miles per tow, occasionally shorter tows are completed, which could introduce a sampling bias if the data were normalised to number of items per distance covered, as this change in sampling effort and potential increase in entanglement sighting may not be accounted for. Supplementary Fig. 6 demonstrates that the number of CPR tows is scalable to the distance towed by the CPR. In order to account for potential bias due to sampling effort, the counts of entanglements that have been recorded have been normalised for the number of CPR tows completed each year. To normalise the counts of macroplastic entanglement we used a percentage frequency of occurrence calculation = (number of entanglements/number of tows) × 100%. Supplementary Fig. 7 demonstrates the scalability of the macroplastic entanglements per area covered by the CPR (area (m ²) = distance towed (m) × width of CPR (0.225 m)), number of tows and distance towed, to normalise the observational data and provide comparative numbers.

Funding that supports the running of the Volunteer Observing Shipping network used in this project includes DEFRA UK ME-5308, NSF USA OCE-1657887, DFO CA F5955-150026/001/HAL, NERC UK NC-R8/H12/100, IMR Norway, and DTU Aqua Denmark. We thank the people and funding agencies responsible for the maintenance and collection of data for their invaluable work and contributions.

Authors and Affiliations

1. The Marine Biological Association, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, PL1 2PB, UK

Clare Ostle, Derek Broughton, Lance Gregory, Marianne Wootton & David G. Johns

2. School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK

Richard C. Thompson

Contributions

C.O. conceived the project. L.G., M.W. and D.G.J. maintain the operations and data collection. R.C.T. provided expertise on ocean plastics, and the data analysis. D.B. developed the dataset. C.O. carried out the computations and data analysis and prepared the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the discussion of the results and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Clare Ostle.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Journal peer review information: Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Publisher's note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Reprints and Permissions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The rise in ocean plastics evidenced from a 60-year time series - Nature Communications

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plastic production has increased exponentially since its use became widespread in the 1950s. This has led to increased concern as plastics have become prevalent in the oceanic environment, and evidence of their impacts on marine organisms and human health has been highlighted.

# data[].attributes.headline
Studying the rise of ocean plastics - Explore the data with free software

# data[].attributes.subject
Studying the rise of ocean plastics - Explore the data with free software

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In a very recent article in the journal Nature, a team of marine scientists analyzed data that had been captured in devices called Continuous Plankton Recorders (CPRs) since the 1930s. CPRs are towed by vessels during their routine journeys and are designed to capture plankton for research purposes.

But beginning in 1957, CPRs started to accidentally capture another piece of data - one which we didn't know we would find useful until recently - because in that year, a CPR was found to be contaminated with a man-made plastic object for the first time.

For thir journal article, the team of scientists painstakingly put together a dataset of all such incidents of man-made plastics being found in CPRs in the North Atlantic, Arctic and Northern European seas from the first recorded incident in 1957 through to 2016. They also gave the public access to that dataset - a total of 208 incidents of various types of plastic ranging from fishing nets to plastic bags.

As I looked at the dataset here, I realized that it is a great dataset to help teach someone how to create a data exploration app using R Shiny, and this is what I will do in this series of articles. The dataset is limited in size so easy to work with, but contains a wide range of information including dates, text, and geographic co-ordinate data.

To follow this series, you need some basic experience in data manipulation in R, including using RStudio as a coding environment. Some previous experience using RMarkdown, Shiny, and simple plotting in ggplot2 is helpful but not essential. You will need to install the following packages before you start: shiny, RMarkdown, ggplot2, tidyverse and leaflet.

In this series you will learn how to:

Design a simple web dashboard format in R Markdown, and prepare your data for use in this dashboard.

Understand reactivity in shiny apps, and how inputs and outputs interact

Create simple charts that change according to user inputs

Visualize co-ordinate data on maps

(Advanced): create animated time series graphics

Publish your app so that others can play with it

To see the app that will be the end product of this series you can visit here and the full set of code is on Github here. Here is one of the cooler outputs - a clip from an animated timeline of all instances of man-made plastics discovered in CPRs since 1957.

What is Shiny?

shiny is an open source R package that provides an elegant and powerful web framework for building web applications using R.

One way of describing the value of shiny is as follows: imagine you are an analyst in a company and you have access to a confidential set of data that many people want statistics on. You get at least six requests a day for predictable statistics like grouped averages based on specified filters. One way of dealing with this is to just manually do these analyses yourself every time and send the results to the requestor.

Another is to build a simple self-serve app where requestors can visit any time, select their filters and other inputs, and see the results instantly. shinyallows exploration of a data set via the web, where the developer can decide what can be seen and how it can be seen. Using shiny, R programmers can save a lot of manual effort at the cost of just a little extra coding. (In fact, with every release, Shiny can do a lot more that just this, but let's stick to this for now).

To use shiny, R programmers need to delve slightly into the world of reactivity. They need to understand how inputs feed into reactive variables in R and how to control that reactivity in order to display the output that they desire. If you don't have time to learn and master Javascript, shiny is a great option to achieve the goal of publishing reactive analytics via the web.

Designing your dashboard

How you design your dashboard depends heavily on how it is going to be used. If it is intended to be a product to be used by many people to fulfill a particular need, it's advisable to follow the principles of good UX design and conduct user interviews to understand exactly what your users need before proceeding to mockups and technical development.

In this case, since this is a fun project and not for a massive user base, we can decide some of our own design. The first thing we need to do is look at the data and ask: what do we think people will be interested in seeing? Here is a snapshot of the CPR data we are dealing with:

We can see a few things that would be of interest. First, the 'Observation' column helps us identify what type of plastic was found, allowing us to add a 'type' to the data set (similar to how the scientists in the Nature article conducted their analysis), which may help for filtering. There is also a 'Year of tow' column, helping us understand the timeline. There are co-ordinates for the start and end of the tow, helping us visualize where the plastic was found, and finally there are names for different maritime regions, which may also be helpful for filtering.

Therefore, it might be useful to include the following in our app:

1. The ability to filter by plastic type and maritime region for all analyses

2. The ability to filter by year period for some analyses

3. The ability to see some basic statistics on incidences of plastics in CPRs (potentially guided by the analysis done in the Nature article).

4. The ability to visualize where and when these instances occurred on maps.

Therefore, we are going to design our dashboard as follows:

The GLOBAL SIDEBAR will always be visible. It will give some general use guidelines and context and it will allow filtering by plastic type and by maritime region, so that any results displayed in the app will reflect these filters. Then there will be three independent pages, each one focusing on a different aspect of the data:

STATS will present some descriptive statistics on the incidents, with some further filtering options

LOCATIONS will present the locations of incidents on a map of some form

TIME will show in some form how incidents occurred over time

Preparing the data for use in the app

With our design in mind, we now need to take the dataset given to us by the researchers and adapt it to be used in our app. There are two steps to this.

First, we need to add any new columns necessary for a particular analysis we have in mind in our design. As I mentioned above, this dataset is already in pretty good shape, but we do need to parse the Observation column to determine a 'type' for each incident, and we could do with cleaning up the column names to make them simpler to work with, as they will look pretty messy when loaded directly into R. So let's start up a project in RStudio and call it cpr_data, and let's create a subfolder in that project called called data, and in this we can place the original xlsx file the researchers provided us. We can write a simple R script to add the new 'type' column and to tidy up the column names - let's call that prep_data.R. We can load the dataset in by either opening it in Excel, deleting the first row, resaving as a CSV file and use read.csv. Or, like I do below, you can read it into R directly using the openxlsx package.

# prep data for use in CPR app # load libraries library(dplyr)# prep data for use in CPR app library(dplyr)colnames(data) <- gsub("[.]", "", colnames(data)) %>% data <- data %>%
library(openxlsx) # load libraries # load original data file and make colnames easier to code with data <- openxlsx::read.xlsx("data/Supplementary_Data_1.xlsx", sheet = 1, startRow = 2)
library(openxlsx) colnames(data)[grepl("region", colnames(data))] <- "region" # create columns to classify by key term # save as an RDS file saveRDS(data, "data/data.RDS")
 tolower()
 dplyr::mutate(
 type = dplyr::case_when(
 grepl("net", observation, ignore.case = TRUE) ~ "Netting",
 grepl("line|twine|fishing", observation, ignore.case = TRUE) ~ "Line",
 grepl("rope", observation, ignore.case = TRUE) ~ "Rope",
 grepl("bag|plastic", observation, ignore.case = TRUE) ~ "Bag",
 grepl("monofilament", observation, ignore.case = TRUE) ~ "Monofilament",
 grepl("string|cord|tape|binding|fibre", observation, ignore.case = TRUE) ~ "String",
 1L == 1L ~ "Unclassified"
 )
)

In this script we use grepl() to identify terms in the text strings in the Observation column, and then we use dplyr::case_when() to assign these terms to a type. In the event that no terms match, we define a type ~ "Unclassified" . We also change column names into simple lower case strings that are easy to code.

Second, we need to re-save this transformed data. Later, when we have written our app and we deploy it so that others can access it, this data file will be bundled with it, and the app will read it into its environment. If this dataset was very large, we would need to think about the fastest file format that R could read from. But in this case the dataset is small, so we can choose any file format to save it as. In this case we will keep things simple and save the dataset as an R object into an RDS file.

Next time...

So we have got our basic design planned, and we have the data set up in the right way. In the next part of this series, I'll go through how to get the simple outline of the dashboard up and running. I'll also discuss how to handle inputs and reactive variables and how to build some basic descriptive plots in ggplot2 that respond to user input.

Exercises

Here are some follow-up exercises which you can use to test how well you have absorbed the content of this article:

1. What is R Shiny and why might it be useful for this dataset?

2. How might you go about designing this dashboard if the user base was going to be large and varied?

3. How does a local dataset get used in an R Shiny app? What are the key things to think about when you create a dataset to be used in an R Shiny app?

4. Read the Nature article that gave rise to this dataset. What other ways might you design this dashboard having read this article?

Originally I was a Pure Mathematician, then I became a Psychometrician and a Data Scientist. I am passionate about applying the rigor of all those disciplines to complex people questions. I'm also a coding geek and a massive fan of Japanese RPGs. Find me on or on .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Watch the rise of plastics in our oceans - Part one

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In a very recent article in the journal Nature, a team of marine scientists analyzed data that had been captured in devices called Continuous Plankton Recorders (CPRs) since the 1930s. CPRs are towed by vessels during their routine journeys and are designed to capture plankton for research purposes.

# data[].attributes.headline
UK Ports Performing on environmental pilots

# data[].attributes.subject
UK Ports Performing on environmental pilots

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
11 September 2020

Brixham Harbour - owned and operated by Tor Bay Harbour Authority - is participating in the Fishing for Litter scheme.

11 September 2020

Volunteers in Torbay have been processing commercial fishing nets at Brixham Quay - stripping them of metal work, rubber and rope so it can be transported to a company in Denmark where the nets will be recycled back into plastic pellets.

11 September 2020

Shipping is the most efficient way to move cargo. Waterborne freight transport can provide environmental benefits and reduce road congestion and pollution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
11 September 2020 Brixham Harbour - owned and operated by Tor Bay Harbour Authority - is participating in the Fishing for Litter scheme. 11 September 2020 Volunteers in Torbay have been processing commercial fishing nets at Brixham Quay - stripping them of metal work, rubber and rope so it can be transported to a company in Denmark where the nets will be recycled back into plastic pellets.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Skip to main content

Hedgerows are hidden heroes nestled within our towns, cities and countryside. They absorb carbon and air pollution, provide wildlife habitats and make us feel better with their lush greenery.

But to get everyone passionate about hedgerows, we need people to notice these leafy lovelies growing right under our noses.

So in this first National Hedgerow Week, we're calling on people to get curious about their local hedges, and asking them to #TalkToTheHedge with our fun and informative guide to chatting to hedges.

Get the guide.

Enter your details below and we'll send you your free guide.

Annually, a new hedgerow can absorb the carbon produced by a car travelling over 1,000 kilometres

This project is funded by the government's Green Recovery Challenge Fund. The fund is being delivered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency.

Copyright © 2021 Tree Council & Partners

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
National Hedgerow Week 2021 - Open up to hedgerows this summer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Skip to main content Hedgerows are hidden heroes nestled within our towns, cities and countryside. They absorb carbon and air pollution, provide wildlife habitats and make us feel better with their lush greenery. But to get everyone passionate about hedgerows, we need people to notice these leafy lovelies growing right under our noses.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Tour of the Marine Biological Association

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MBA Sepia Research Vessel of the Marine Biological Association

# data[].attributes.headline
Description of the effects of plastic paper and how the CPR works

# data[].attributes.subject
Description of the effects of plastic paper and how the CPR works

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) Survey and ocean plastics

# data[].attributes.headline
Swift numbers have dramatically plummeted in recent years, and one reason is the loss of suitable nesting sites. Swift Mapper allows you to record nesting swifts, enabling us to locate breeding spots and protect their homes. You can use the app or website version to submit records of nesting swifts.

# data[].attributes.subject
Swift numbers have dramatically plummeted in recent years, and one reason is the loss of suitable nesting sites. Swift Mapper allows you to record nesting swifts, enabling us to locate breeding spots and protect their homes. You can use the app or website version to submit records of nesting swifts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Swifts pair for life and meet up at the same nest site in the UK each spring - usually in gaps under roof tiles and in the eaves of buildings. But as more and more old buildings are demolished or renovated, many swifts are returning to discover their nest site is gone.

Together with our partners Action for Swifts, Natural Apptitude, Swift Conservation and the Swifts Local Network we've developed Swift Mapper; a web-based mapping system and mobile app.

By telling us where you see nesting swifts you'll help to build a picture of where swift nest sites need to be protected and where it would be best to provide new nest sites.

If you're having trouble downloading the mobile app, try these tips from the App Store or Google Play. Make sure you also read our Swift Mapper FAQs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Swifts pair for life and meet up at the same nest site in the UK each spring - usually in gaps under roof tiles and in the eaves of buildings. But as more and more old buildings are demolished or renovated, many swifts are returning to discover their nest site is gone.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nature on your Doorstep - Wildlife-friendly Gardening | The RSPB

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With the help of Barratt Developments PLC, we've created wildlife gardening tips and tricks to make your outside space a happier place for you - and for the nature on your doorstep.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brought to you by RSPB Scotland and co-sponsored by NatureScot, be part of our special 10 year anniversary awards programme! Free to enter, we are seeking applications and nominations by Tuesday 14 June in 10 award categories from business, public sector organisations, research institutions, community groups and individuals who have been active in nature conservation across Scotland, and their work can date back to March 2018.

We are proud to announce two new categories including the Health and Wellbeing Award which recognises the positive relationship between nature and wellbeing and celebrates initiatives that actively encourage people to engage with nature to support mental and/or physical health and a new Nature Champion of the Decade which will open as a public vote in autumn.

Learn more about all the award categories, enter your own project or nominate your conservation heroes today.

We look forward to receiving your entries! For updates on the awards and information on our previous winners please follow @NatureofScot on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brought to you by RSPB Scotland and co-sponsored by NatureScot, be part of our special 10 year anniversary awards programme! Free to enter, we are seeking applications and nominations by Tuesday 14 June in 10 award categories from business, public sector organisations, research institutions, community groups and individuals who have been active in nature conservation across Scotland, and their work can date back to March 2018.

# data[].attributes.headline
Friends of the Earth - how do you effect climate change?

# data[].attributes.subject
Friends of the Earth - how do you effect climate change?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Who does climate change affect?

Climate change is devastating people's lives all over the world. With drought, storms, floods, crop damage and sea-level rise, millions are fleeing their homes. And it's the world's poorest who are hardest hit.

The UN Refugee Agency says climate change adds to many of today's conflicts - from Somalia to Syria.

The effects will get worse as temperatures rise further. So we must cut greenhouse gas emissions to stop temperatures rising.

People also need protection from the climate change we can no longer avoid. That means financial support for developing countries and legal protection for climate refugees.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate change Local solutions to a global crisis | Friends of the Earth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Climate change is devastating people's lives all over the world. With drought, storms, floods, crop damage and sea-level rise, millions are fleeing their homes. And it's the world's poorest who are hardest hit. The UN Refugee Agency says climate change adds to many of today's conflicts - from Somalia to Syria.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From building a bug hotel to creating a garden pond, here are some ideas for things you can do yourself at home to help wildlife.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We understand that h ealthy, balanced, diverse and sustainable diets will look different in different parts of the world, dependent on what food is available and culturally relevant. We also respect that people's diets are heavily influenced by local cultures and individual choice so we would never be prescriptive in recommending what people eat.

# data[].attributes.headline
How to make our workplaces more sustainable

# data[].attributes.subject
How to make our workplaces more sustainable

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sustainable Office Guide

We've put together a Sustainable Office Guide with many more practical tips and instructions for measuring footprints and helping our planet. To download a free copy of the guide click here.

Finally, because most of the world is now working from home, we've also included some tips below to help reduce the footprint of your home office situation.

#1 - switch to renewable energy at home using Big Clean Switch to compare deals available, you'll be surprised at how much you can save

#2 - change your most-used bulbs to LEDs, these are 80% more efficient than standard CFL bulbs

#3 - make sure you're recycling correctly by checking what can and can't be recycled in your home (see recycle now)

#4 - switch to a flexitarian diet, eating less but better quality meat, and more vegetables and wholegrains. You can use our Planet Based Diets online tool to help

#5 - take shorter showers and think about your water footprint. Did you know the average shower dispenses 12 litres of water a minute?

#6 - turn devices off standby and chargers when not in use. When plugs are turned on they are still drawing power, even if it's small it can soon add up

#7 - take more walks, drive less, explore the local nature around you - it's great for our mental wellbeing and helps us value and take an interest in our local spaces

#8 - support local, small and independent businesses who need our help a lot more than large chains and corporations

#9 - make second-hand shopping your go-to. Check sites such as Thrift+ for clothes, World of Books, Oxfam books, eBay for everything and anything, and local sites such as Facebook marketplace and Nextdoor.co.uk (as well as hundreds of others).

#10 - check where your workplace pension is invested by asking your employer and your pension provider, and ask to switch to a planet-friendly fund

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Take a look at our top 20 tips to help turn your workplace into a sustainability champion in 2021!

# data[].attributes.headline
A Beginners Guide to Ecosystem Restoration

# data[].attributes.subject
A Beginners Guide to Ecosystem Restoration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At Hinksey Heights, on the edge of Oxford: we're restoring alkaline fen, one of the richest and most threatened habitats for freshwater biodiversity and making new clean water ponds for great crested newts.

The Oxfordshire Fens Project began work on Hinksey Heights fen in August 2018. We've focused on the management of rank vegetation, and especially the control of common reed Phragmites australis which had swamped the site, to allow special wetland plants that depend on fen environments a chance to grow. We're also testing the careful introduction from local fen sources (within 5 km of the site) of plants characteristic of alkaline fens which we know to be absent from the site. Many fen species lack a long-lasting seedbank from which they might reappear even with good management, so translocation is a good option to recreate the fen communities which would have occurred there naturally.

Pre-restoration monitoring was undertaken in July 2018 and the first results after management collected in August 2019. Already several plants we expect to see in alkaline fen have emerged from the seed bank, including blunt-flowered rush Juncus subnodulosus and fen bedstraw Galium uliginosum. Several of the plants specially introduced have also become well-established, including the 'ecosystem engineer' marsh lousewort Pedicularis palustris, which parasitises and weakens common reed, and parsley water dropwort Oenanthe lachenalii which is in danger of extinction in Oxfordshire because it is found in so few places.

Reaching our management targets in terms of community composition and structure will take several years. But the monitoring shows we're already reaching some of the our short-term targets: management has reduced the dominance of the tough species such as common reed and got the height of the vegetation down to a more desirable level in one of the two management areas - this is important as it will help the fen community develop, and let the more sensitive plants through.

The fen work has been made possible with funding from The Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment. If you would like to get involved contact Judy Webb judy.webb@virgin.net or Ellie Mayhew emayhew@freshwaterhabitats.org.uk.

Elsewhere on the site the Newt Conservation Partnership have just created two new great crested newt ponds as compensation habitat in South Oxfordshire for the Nature Space District Level Licensing Scheme.

The newt ponds look great, but now we have to wait! We'll need the ponds to fill, but with all this wet weather that was happening almost as the diggers left site! There are great crested newts nearby, within 500 m (one of the criteria of the scheme, which determines where to make the ponds, so that newts can colonise them naturally), so it's just a question of time before the first newts move in. Elsewhere in the project, some ponds have been colonised by great crested newts in as little as 6 months following the new ponds being built.

You can read more about the work of the Oxfordshire Fens Project and the Newt Conservation Partnership here:

Photo credits:

Fen bedstraw by Ivar Leidus; Marsh lousewort by Christian Fischer; Parsley water-dropwort by Kristian Peters CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org.

Volunteers undertaking reed management at Hinksey Heights by Judy Webb

New pond creation for great crested newts by Pascale Nicolet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hinksey Heights: Fen Restoration and Newt Conservation - Freshwater Habitats Trust

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At Hinksey Heights, on the edge of Oxford: we're restoring alkaline fen, one of the richest and most threatened habitats for freshwater biodiversity and making new clean water ponds for great crested newts. The Oxfordshire Fens Project began work on Hinksey Heights fen in August 2018.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At the start of the century five organisations came together to create a vision for a new, sustainable future for the Great Fen. Much progress has been made in the last 15 years.

# data[].attributes.headline
8 Lazy ways to be Environmentally Friendly

# data[].attributes.subject
8 Lazy ways to be Environmentally Friendly

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
1. Save water. Don't wash the dishes

Let them pile up to the point where you're actually wondering if it's ok to eat soup from a dog's bowl. Then, and only then, casually load the dirty pots into a dishwasher. Press the start button. Now sit down and catch your breath.

A fully loaded dishwasher can be more water efficient than washing by hand. Even if you're using a washing-up bowl.

Are you getting the hang of being environmentally friendly?

7. Clean the air. Get a cheap ride

You've unplugged your alarm clock to save some energy, 'for the planet'. But you'll have to get up at some point. Let's not overdo it though. How about a chauffeur?

I know we shouldn't be advocating driving but blah blah blah. BlaBlaCar actually. Find a driver going to the same place as you. By sharing a ride with others - or as I like to call it, being driven around by someone - you'll be helping to reduce air pollution.

8. Support clean energy. Don't build a windmill

We both know that your talents are better served in a hammock pretending to read a book.

Switch to renewable energy instead. Lie back and watch it happen in as little as 5 minutes. No disruption to your supply and no engineers asking you to make tea.

It's cheaper than you think and means your dreams of an eco-powered robot butler are still well and truly alive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
8 lazy ways to be environmentally friendly | Friends of the Earth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Let them pile up to the point where you're actually wondering if it's ok to eat soup from a dog's bowl. Then, and only then, casually load the dirty pots into a dishwasher. Press the start button. Now sit down and catch your breath.

# data[].attributes.body
Video to come.

# data[].attributes.headline
Materials needed to make your own bird feeder at home!

# data[].attributes.subject
Materials needed to make your own bird feeder at home!

# data[].attributes.body
Plastic bottle – empty, clean & dry. Any size will work.

Two sticks – must be at least 10cm longer than the bottle is wide. Wooden dowels, wooden spoons, chopsticks or garden canes could all work well.

Something to make  holes in the bottle with e.g. a nail/screw/pin

Scissors

String