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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Data resources for assessing regional impacts of energy facilities on health and the environment

Conference ·
OSTI ID:5283253
Atmospheric emissions from fossil fuel power plants and other sources continue to cause concern about impacts of these pollutants on human health and the environment. Assessing these impacts requires a regional-scale approach that integrates spatial and temporal patterns of emissions, environmental factors, and human populations. Two examples of regional studies are presented, including a comparison of patterns of coal-fired power plants and selected diseases and identification of areas sensitive to acid rain which may transfer acid and toxic metals to aquatic systems and man. Energy, socioeconomic, health, and environmental data are often collected and summarized for counties in the United States. Counties are well-defined geopolitical units which can be used to integrate data, to aggregate data into larger regional units, and to display data as thematic maps. However, researchers are too frequently faced with the tedious tasks of assembling and reformatting files from several data collection agencies prior to conducting regional studies. Systems such as UPGRADE, DIDS, SEEDIS, and Geoecology have standarized many files into integrated data bases which utilize counties as the primary spatial unit. These systems are compared and data resources discussed.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-26
OSTI ID:
5283253
Report Number(s):
CONF-810652-10; ON: DE82017535
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English