It isn’t easy to get perspective on a major disaster such as the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

But this week’s link of the week, “If it was my home,” can at least help us to understand the scale of the oil spill.

The website automatically detects your location, then superimposes an approximate image of the oil spill, based on NOAA data, centered on your location. On the website you can move the oil spill around by entering other locations, or by clicking the button, “Put it back in the gulf.”

By seeing how much familiar ground the oil spill would cover, you can get a better sense of the spill’s physical size.

Of course, the information displayed on this map is just the tip of the, ah, oil; much of the spill remains underwater.

It is also worth noting that the volume of oil leaking each day is in contention; estimates range from 800,000 to 15.9 million liters per day. Hence the disagreement between the various quantities cited by the website’s embedded PBS leak tracker, and the numbers cited in the FAQ.

-Miriam Boon, iSGTW

Related articles in this issue:

• Feature - BP oil spill: Scientists mobilize to create new disaster response science
• Video of the week - Simulations show scenarios for oil spill