RShiny LifeWatch Data Explorer: Manual


The Rshiny LifeWatch Data Explorer has been developed by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in 2015-2016. This interactive online tool gives access to all sensor data collected in the framework of the Flemish LifeWatch project, and provides an interface to explore and analyze these data. Some of the more recent data is temporarily under moratorium and therefore protected by password access.

The Data Explorer is built using RShiny server, Leaflet, ggplot2, PLotly, Dygraph and DataTables. The system is able to query MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Geoserver (WFS) and MongoDB servers.

Within the LifeWatch Data Explorer, 5 general sections are available to explore, plot, visualize and download data:

A5. Plots

Several thematic portals have been set up as part of the Data Explorer:

B7. CPOD Data Explorer

This manual offers a detailed overview of the functionalities within the 5 sections in general, followed by an explanation of some more specific functionalities for each of the thematic portals.


A. General sections in the LifeWatch Data Explorer

A1. Data source

The “Data source” section offers information about the provided data, an overview of the available columns in the data table and a summary statistics table. Also, this section allows the user to define several query options, data options and filter options, hereby remodeling the loaded data table. Finally the user can download the loaded data table.