The question

Can the everyday vibrations recorded by seismometers reveal changes in human activity at city scale?

The work

I used seismic data to compare urban activity before and during pandemic restrictions, and built a web tool to communicate those patterns. The approach examines aggregate environmental signals rather than personal location histories.

Recognition and communication

This was my Rise project and received a Gold Medal at the 2021 Canada-Wide Science Fair. I also wrote about the approach for IISD’s UN World Data Forum series.

An important distinction

Changes in seismic noise are an indicator of activity. They are not, on their own, a causal measurement of public-health outcomes.

Project documentation

An original seismic-analysis figure will be added when a publication-ready asset is available.

Sources & further reading