Project description
The goal of this exercise was to apply several methods I developed for mapping chemical exposure to one project. The first of these methods pertains to how to analyzing and depict chemical type, class, toxicity, carcinogenicity. The second method entailed the development of a method to define a research area and determine if there are spatially different features within the defined research area. I developed two grid mapping techniques and one buffer analysis technique to carry out this task. This project focused on the use of buffers, very much mimicking the use of Theissen polygon analytic techniques demonstrated elsewhere in the Spatial Analysis section of my GIS work. The third accomplishment I tried to make was to make use of the gridcell data to produce an isoline map that could be used to define the most toxic areas in this part of the state. Isolines were depicted for each chemical class analyzed for this activity, which made use of data from all confirmed release sites.
This next series of maps therefore depicts the analysis of Aromatic Ring exposure. There were five types of aromatic ring reports noted in the chemical release data. The most toxic group, halogenic benzenes was reviewed, followed by simple benzenes, polycyclic aromatics (multiple benzene ring bearers), and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). These maps demonstrate the need to be very familiar with the chemical groups you will be analyzing. A focus on just one group of aromatics provides a totally different outcome.
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Brian Altonen, MPH, MS 
