The Blue Green Action Platform is our dynamic, online resource that will educate and connect users through data and stories about nitrogen pollution. End users, such as this farmer from Iowa who is worried about nitrogen pollution generated from her farm, will be able to enter their location and use BlueGap’s Knowledge System and Data Analytics features to access and visualize reliable data about nitrogen pollution in their watershed. From our Phase I interviews, likely end users most trust data from government-sponsored sources, but these data are typically difficult to find and contextualize because there is little sharing between different data sources. BlueGAP will help overcome these barriers and make data more publicly accessible by centralizing key nitrogen data all in one place.
But BlueGap is more than just a data platform. It will also be able to connect users with members of the BlueGap Alliance and BlueGap Academy, share engaging stories of local community leaders addressing nitrogen pollution, and allow users to upload content and share their own story through BlueGap’s Communication System. To facilitate easy user engagement, BlueGAP will include an AI-based virtual assistant with natural language processing and voice recognition so that end users can directly interact with the platform using their voice or typing, as if they were interacting with a human expert.