19  Apps

The MST provides three interactive web applications — two Shiny apps (Scores, Species) plus a newer, static, in-browser Atlas — along with several legacy applications from earlier development phases.

NoteOne application, every release

Every one of the three current apps renders any published release rather than shipping a per-version fork. Scores and Species do this from the URL (/v3/scores/; older ?ver=v3 links redirect there) — the version is data, settled by the release’s published manifest, so a fix reaches every version at once, and the 18 former per-version Shiny instances are retired with their URLs redirecting permanently to the equivalent path. The Atlas follows the same rule with a different mechanism (Appendix B): one static build reads the same published versions.json, resolving the release from ?ver= on its public host, and — its preview route shipping with 0.10.59 — from the URL path on its signed-in preview host.

These tools allow stakeholders, scientists, and decision-makers to understand the underlying components contributing to an area’s sensitivity to offshore energy development, supporting better planning and impact assessment.

19.1 Current Applications

19.1.1 Atlas (beta) — static, in-browser scores, species and places

The Atlas is a newer, third way to explore the MST, currently labelled beta: one static Svelte/MapLibre app with no application server of its own — scores, clicks, flowers and reports are computed in your browser by a DuckDB-WASM instance, though score tiles, zone outlines and the basemap still come from the project’s titiler, PMTiles and CARTO. It combines what Scores and Species do separately — mapping composite scores and mapping individual species — with a capability neither Shiny app has, Places: drawing, typing or uploading any area of interest (not only the built-in Program Areas) and getting the same scores, species tables and an exportable report for it, shareable entirely through the URL.

See Appendix B for the full walkthrough, including how a drawn place is encoded into a shareable link.

19.1.2 Scores — mapper of aggregate sensitivity scores

The Scores application is the primary tool for exploring composite sensitivity scores across BOEM Program Areas. Key features include:

  • Multi-resolution viewing: toggle between cell-level (0.05° grid) and Program Area aggregations
  • Study area selection: focus on specific Program Areas or subregions
  • Layer selection: view individual species category scores or composite metrics
  • Flower plot: interactive summary showing scores by species category with weighted center value
  • Species table: sortable table of species present in selected area with extinction risk details
  • Treemap: hierarchical view of species contributions to sensitivity
  • CSV export: download data for selected area or species

Under the hood the Scores app composes three kinds of map layer (Figure 13.1):

  • Score raster — a pre-rendered COG per metric × subregion, whose URL and rescale range come straight from the release manifest. The browser fetches only the tiles intersecting its viewport; no full-raster transfer on load (see Figure 13.2).
  • “Cells outside Program Areas” mask — a single-color overlay published the same way.
  • Zone choropleth — polygon geometry from a static PMTiles archive published per geometry vintage, with per-zone fill colors pushed live into the paint spec from the release’s zone_metric (see Figure 13.4).

Because every one of those is resolved from the manifest rather than hardcoded, switching the URL’s version segment (e.g. /v3/ → /v4/) switches all three together — including drawing the boundary vintage that release actually used.

See Appendix C for details.

19.1.3 Species — mapper of individual species distributions

The Species application enables exploration of individual species distribution models. Key features include:

  • Species selection: search by common or scientific name, filter by species category
  • Model display: view merged models or individual source dataset layers
  • Representation toggle: compare the native-resolution original with the interpolated surface used in scoring
  • Masking toggle: compare the expert-range-constrained merged model with the unconstrained suitability
  • Species info panel: ESA listing, IUCN Red List category, MMPA/MBTA protection flags, extinction risk score
  • Deep-linking: URL parameters support direct links to specific species

See Appendix D for details.

19.2 Legacy Applications

Earlier prototype applications from the research phase are kept in the Appendix under Applications (Legacy) for reference. They are not part of the current serving path.