Click on one of the maps links in the left-hand sidebar to view a map of monitoring data. Maps are best viewed when they’re large, so use the burger menu in the top left to hide the sidebar and maximise the visible area:

The left-hand panel on the map page is called the inspector. It shows you information about the visible markers and lets you browse various aspects of the data:

Click and drag on the background to pan around the map. Use the + and – buttons in the bottom right to zoom in and out. The globe button switches between normal and satellite views. The arrow button in the bottom right zooms to your current location, and the arrow-in-a-square button in the bottom left toggles the inspector on/off:

You can also zoom using the scroll wheel and zoom in by double clicking on the map background.

The inspector panel shows a list of attributes displayed on the map. An attribute is a piece of data or a calculation, such as temperature, pH, or species spotted.

Click on an attribute to colour the map markers accordingly. The inspector will change to show some charts and a legend that describes the colour coding. You may have to use the scroll bar to see all the available information:

The chart shows a histogram of the distribution of values among the visible surveys. Each bar represents a different value (or range of values) from the legend. The height of each bar represents the number of surveys that fall into that range:

Click on a feature on the map to select it. The map marker will increate in size slightly to show it is selected. The inspector will show the values recorded at the location, and the relevant bar will be highlighted in the distribution chart. Click anywhere on the map background to clear the selection:

Click the timeline link in the inspector to swap the distribution chart for a timeline. Click a marker to see the history of values in/around that location:

This timeline is generated by drawing a small circular lasso around the markers where you click. Any marker inside the lasso is included in chart. You can adjust the size of the lasso in the map options (see below).

When you’re done browsing a particular attribute of the data, click on the back button at the top left of the inspector to return to the attribute list:

Maps show data recorded over a range of time. This defaults to an extremely long duration, but you can focus on a specific point in history by changing the map options.

Click the cog icon in the top right of the inspector to display the map options. Adjust the values for the from and to dates as appropriate. The map will update automatically:

Click on the back button at the top left of the options panel to return to the normal inspector view when you’re done.

Some maps are built collaboratively by people in multiple workspaces. These collaborative maps are indicated by a small globe icon in the sidebar:

Collaborative maps have a special setting that you can adjust on the Map Options panel, accessed by clicking the small cog icon at the top right of the inspector sidebar:

Click the workspace filter dropdown [1] on the map options panel and select Include data from other workspaces [2] to toggle between viewing data from the current workspace and all workspaces:

Features from all visible workspaces are included in the KML, GeoJSON, and CSV downloads available from the map options panel.

We only share map features that originate from approved surveys. We share all monitoring data from the map, but we don’t share personal information about surveyors.

Click on the View photographs link at the top of the inspector to browse photographs taken at different survey locations. Click on a map marker to show nearby photographs in the left-hand panel:

See