title: Assessment and application of national environmental databases and mapping tools at the local level to two community case studies.
abstract: Communities are concerned over pollution levels and seek methods to systematically identify and prioritize the environmental stressors in their communities. Geographic information system (GIS) maps of environmental information can be useful tools for communities in their assessment of environmental-pollution-related risks. Databases and mapping tools that supply community-level estimates of ambient concentrations of hazardous pollutants, risk, and potential health impacts can provide relevant information for communities to understand, identify, and prioritize potential exposures and risk from multiple sources. An assessment of existing databases and mapping tools was conducted as part of this study to explore the utility of publicly available databases, and three of these databases were selected for use in a community-level GIS mapping application. Queried data from the U.S. EPA's National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, Air Quality System, and National Emissions Inventory were mapped at the appropriate spatial and temporal resolutions for identifying risks of exposure to air pollutants in two communities. The maps combine monitored and model-simulated pollutant and health risk estimates, along with local survey results, to assist communities with the identification of potential exposure sources and pollution hot spots. Findings from this case study analysis will provide information to advance the development of new tools to assist communities with environmental risk assessments and hazard prioritization.
authors.affiliation: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, National Exposure Research Laboratory, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. hammond.davyda@epa.gov
authors.forename: Davyda
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hammond
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Conlon
authors.forename: Timothy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Barzyk
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chahine
authors.forename: Valerie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Zartarian
authors.forename: Brad
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schultz
mesh_terms: D003628:Database Management Systems; D004787:Environmental Pollution; D014481:United States; D014484:United States Environmental Protection Agency