As the environment continues to become more and more of a challenge, the National Park Service (NPS) is taking advantage of the power of STEM to keep our parks safe, resilient, and beautiful. Specifically the NPS Environmental Compliance and Cleanup Division (ECCD) specializes in technology, engineering, and policy development for managing the cleanup of legacy pollution sites found in across the National Park System.
The ECCD takes advantage of geographic information systems (GIS) in order to create maps the show the mountains, rivers, and hidden patterns of pollution. These maps help to identify communities that are most vulnerable to environmental harm. A cutting-edge mapping methodology utilizes publicly available and nationally consistent datasets to indentify these vulnerable communities.
With this information, the National Park Service is able to make informed decisions on where to invest in cleanup projects. With evolving data and statistical methods, the ECCD will be able to advance the NPS’s geospatial methodologies.
As an example of their work, during Hurricanes, the ECCD was able to assess the potential impacts from Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene before they landed, figuring out how contaminated sites in park units in the southeast U.S. could be affected by the storms. To do this, they ranked the potential impacts from low to high while considering hurricane paths, landslide potential, local wind speeds, stream-gauges, utility and road closures, and much more. With that information, park managers are able to prioritize response efforts and ensure that resources are distributed and used effectively
“Using mapping tools allowed me to quickly identify which contaminated sites in parks in my region were most likely impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton. For parks with multiple sites and significant facility damage across the park, being able to prioritize and ask about specific sites, instead of all sites, makes the best use of the parks’ time as they respond to the hurricanes’ impacts.”– CDR Kelly Kachurak, PE, MS; NPS Region Environmental Coordinator