Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
ResilientMass Resource Database
Ready access to curated climate documents and datasets is essential for planning efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) manages a central repository that allows scientists, environmentalists, and engineers to retrieve current data as it emerges. EEA turned to BSC to design and implement a next-generation storage and search tool.
Offering niche expertise in both climate science and custom software development, our team immediately initiated a program to reorganize existing data and identify new resources and needs. We then created a user-friendly, navigable website that allows the public to easily access this information.
The BSC/Geonetics team worked collaboratively with EEA to refine the scope to achieve the greatest value with the agency’s funding. An intensive discovery phase allowed our team to assess existing resources, transfer data to a new EEA-controlled domain, and identify opportunities to enhance utility and navigability. The project also included the design and implementation of a new MVP Portal that will dovetail with the main resilientMA.org site. Additionally, the project included design and user interface improvements to enhance the look and feel of the clearinghouse website.
The new system utilizes the Amazon Web Services (AWS) artificial intelligence platform to locate documents based on their content by simply asking questions in natural language. The system has full update and management capabilities to keep it up to date, including EEA-defined search filters. Search filters can be saved and shared with others.
Our team’s approach engaged software developers, climate scientists, and planners to curate and organize data in a user-friendly format. This process was informed by BSC’s experience supporting Massachusetts communities under the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Program. Our end-user perspective allowed us to propose and implement a new system that empowers Massachusetts communities to better plan for climate change.