Telling stories with data

A few months ago, we published our latest collaborative project, "Down the Drain," which explored our relationship with wetland ecosystems in the U.S.

As part of that series, Desk journalists worked with the Minnesota Star Tribune to produce a compelling, interactive infographic. It blends historical imagery, maps and data to tell the story of wetlands in a unique way. That project was helmed by our data journalist Jared Whalen, who joins us to share some of that process.

Here's Jared:

"Going into this project, we wanted to emphasize the scale of wetlands in the United States—both what has already been lost and what we still have left to lose. Since the 1780s, more than 118 million acres of wetlands across the U.S. have disappeared.

Big numbers and vast geographies are often difficult to contextualize, especially when they exceed what most people encounter in daily life. For instance, 118 million acres is larger than the entire state of California—but unless you’ve driven across it, that’s hard to visualize.

Losses on this scale tend to feel abstract, blurred by both time and sheer size. That’s why we knew strong visualizations would be essential.

We landed on a visual essay built around an animated map with multiple layers of data and imagery. My co-author, James Eli Shiffer, identified locations that best illustrated the story of America's wetlands—not just their loss and restoration, but also their environmental significance. We connected each location to multimedia assets like historical images, site videos, and the original boundaries of the wetlands. This layered approach, we hoped, gave readers a sense of place and scale without overwhelming them with statistics.

My favorite visual in the piece is a zoomed-out view of the Midwest, overlaid with two rectangles: one showing the estimated extent of wetlands in the 1780s, and a smaller one representing the 1980s. A lot of data visualization is about putting the unfamiliar into a recognizable format. So even if you don’t know much about wetlands or their natural function, the graphic makes it clear that something has been lost.

This type of story was a first for the Desk. Beyond needing a designer and developer to build the presentation, publishing custom projects in content management systems designed for traditional articles can be quite tricky. We were fortunate to partner with the Minnesota Star Tribune, which helped us host and publish the story.

We’re optimistic about this model and hope to continue producing technically ambitious stories in the future."

Michael again. We love trying new things like this, and we're excited about how it came out. We hope you enjoy revisiting the project and exploring wetlands in a new way.

One more note: since we published "Down the Drain," policy changes continue to develop for wetlands. Just last week, reporter Desk reporter Elise Plunk of Louisiana Illuminator dug into how revised wetlands protection laws in Louisiana and other states open the door to development.

Thanks for reading. More next week from across the Basin.

Sincerely,

Michael Crowe
Operations Manager,
Ag & Water Desk