Overlay multiple riverplots (Sankey diagrams) on a map of the world

Question

The fascinating chart below is in the Economist, Jan. 30, 2016 at 61. It depicts exports of liquified natural gas (LNG) from five regions to six regions. How can R draw something similar to it, perhaps with several Sankey diagrams (from the package riverplots) but with arrows reversed as the depicted arrow heads? Meaning, the flows into the exporting region would show as flowing out.

Extracting the data from the plot by eyeball resulted in the df data frame. The variables have strange names because the `riverplot requires unique node names.

> dput(df)
structure(list(ID = structure(c(1L, 6L, 9L, 13L, 2L, 7L, 14L, 
3L, 10L, 15L, 4L, 11L, 5L, 8L, 12L, 16L), .Label = c("Africa-Asia", 
"Africa-Europe", "Africa-Nam", "Africa-SE", "Africa-SthAm", "Europe-Asia", 
"Europe-Europe", "Europe-SthAm", "MidEast-Asia", "MidEast-NthAm", 
"MidEast-SE", "MidEast-SthAm", "SE Asia-Asia", "Sth Am.-Eur", 
"Sth Am.-NthAm", "Sth Am.-SthAm"), class = "factor"), x = c(-30, 
1, 20, 100, -30, 1, -100, -30, 20, -100, -30, 20, -30, 1, 20, 
-100), y = c(120, 120, 120, 120, 1, 1, 1, -120, -120, -120, 100, 
100, -100, -100, -100, -100), value = c(21, 22, 290, 100, 22, 
3, 16, 1, 5, 6, 2, 62, 3, 3, 5, 3), col = structure(c(2L, 3L, 
5L, 1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 2L, 5L, 4L, 2L, 5L, 2L, 3L, 5L, 4L), .Label = c("brickred", 
"green", "purple", "red", "yellow"), class = "factor"), region = structure(1:16, .Label = c("Asia-Africa", 
"Asia-Eur", "Asia-ME", "Asia-SE", "Europe-Africa", "Europe-Eur", 
"Europe-SthAm", "No. Am.-Africa", "No. Am.-ME", "No. Am.-Stham", 
"SE Asia-Afr", "SE Asia-MI", "Sth. Am.-Africa", "Sth. Am.-Eur", 
"Sth. Am.-ME", "Sth. Am.-SthAm"), class = "factor")), .Names = c("ID", 
"x", "y", "value", "col", "region"), row.names = c(NA, -16L), class = "data.frame")

Creating the map is straightforward (although it would look better with Antarctica melted!). Tru, the goal is not a choropleth -- with colored regions according to some variable -- but Ari Lamstein's package choroplethr and its complement, choroplethrMaps, easily creates a world map.

library(choroplethr)  
library(choroplethrMaps)   # to obtain a map of the world
library(ggplot2)
library(riverplot)

data(country.map)          # choose a world map
world <- ggplot(country.map, aes(long, lat, group=group)) + 
  geom_polygon(fill = "grey10") +
  theme_bw()

But the riverplot foiled me, and even if I had gotten an overall plot working, is there code to make four of them (one for each LNG exporting region) and overlay them on the world map?

nodes.df <- df
nodes.df$ID <- capwords(as.character(nodes.df$ID))
nodes.df$ID <- as.factor(nodes.df$ID)

edges.df <- df
edges.df <- setNames(edges.df, c("ID", "N1", "N2", "Value", "Color", "Region")) 

edges.df <- df[  , c("region", "x", "y", "value", "col", "region")]         #  use different ID names
edges.df <- setNames(edges.df, c("ID", "N1", "N2", "Value", "Color", "Region")) 


river <- makeRiver(nodes = nodes.df, edges = edges.df, node_labels = NULL,
                   node_xpos = nodes.df$x, node_ypos = nodes.df$y)

Error in checkedges(edges, nodes$ID) : 
  edges must not have the same IDs as nodes

Fichu

They used Illustrator to make their plot. Sometimes you have to resort to that. – Losing

Well, if you, @hrbrmstr, don't see a way to do it with R, then I thank you for considering it and withdraw my question. :) Still, I like the chart Illustrator created. – Fichu

@Fichu did you know the solution for that ? – Longways

@Alsqr sorry, no – Fichu

If you're still on the search, I just came across this: walkerke.github.io/2016/06/interactive-flow-visualization-i‌​n-r. It isn't using the Mercator projection but rather a 3D interactive globe, but you can scale the flow intensities and it looks cool enough to me :-p. Obviously won't be the Economist plot – Underquote

Answer 1

You could create the Sankey charts separately, save them as PNGs, reimport them and paste them over the map with grid.raster. It's as labour-intensive as doing it with Illustrator but at least it is programmatic (eg ready for data updates). We've done this before at my work when we needed to combine Sankey charts with other graphics like this.

Lp

Answer 2

You could use https://www.mapprovision.com/ to do this.

It takes data that looks like the following and it does the rest.

Here's an example:

There's a step by step guide here:

https://mapprovision.blogspot.com/2020/01/how-to-create-your-own-world-sankey-maps.html

• Disclaimer - I work at MapProvision

Dormeuse