Partners: Corinne Scown, Tyler Huntington, Peter Smith, Andrea Bailey, Meili Gong 

SSEC Engineers: Niki Burggraf, Don Setiawan, Vraj Rajpura

Research Goals and Domain

The BioCircular Valley project aims to develop sustainable products from agricultural waste by creating a publicly accessible web application consisting of interactive map that shows feedstock types, availability, downstream fuel performance, and environmental impact to facilitate the circular bioeconomy in California’s Northern San Joaquin Valley. The application will help researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders assess site suitability, optimize infrastructure placement, and evaluate feedstock availability. It focuses on underutilized organic feedstocks such as almond shells, tomato pomace, winery waste, orchard prunings, integrating agricultural, environmental, and infrastructure datasets to enable informed decision-making.  

Software Problem

Existing solutions like the National BioSiting Tool web application lack the granularity and dynamic resolution capabilities needed for California-specific applications. Given the availability of high-resolution land and crop data in California, these limitations hinder the ability to process high-resolution spatial data and perform real-time analytics within the California context. Additionally, the absence of a scalable backend and flexible API restricts integration with external systems and impedes user adoption. 

Software Solution

SSEC is building a containerized, cloud-deployed solution stack with a Python (FastAPI, SQLModel, GeoAlchemy) backend and React (MapboxGL) frontend. It features adaptive mesh rendering, spatial analytics (buffering, clustering, intersections), and a RESTful API for data access. The backend uses PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension for spatial data management. Vector tiles are pre-generated using Tippecanoe software and served via Mapbox Tile Server. The system supports multimodal data export formats including GeoJSON, CSV, and Shapefiles, and is designed for real-time performance and high scalability.

Impact

The new CA specific platform enables sub-second map interactions and spatial queries; supporting multi-terabyte datasets and parcel-level analysis. It provides a 10x improvement in responsiveness compared to existing tools. By offering a robust API and intuitive web interface, it empowers users such as farmers, biomanufacturers, and researchers to make data-driven decisions. The tool also facilitates integration with partner platforms like BEAM Circular and supports future expansion through modular architecture and open-source licensing.