http://www-apps.niehs.nih.gov/sbrp/annualconf.html

UC San Diego SBRP Outreach Core Poster Session, November 5, 2002

Poster Session Title: Using Advanced Technologies in Outreach Projects

Poster Title: Monitoring Water, Toxics and the Environment Using GIS and 3D Visualization: The case of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border Region.

Authors: Keith Pezzoli, Dan Henderson, Shane DeGross, Eric Frost, Richard Marciano, Alejandro Hinojosa, Dru Clark, Ilya Zaslavsky, David Cleveland, Jason Wiskerchen

Abstract:
The Outreach Core of UC San Diego’s Superfund Basic Research Program is integrating GIS and 3D Visualization in support of water quality management and watershed planning (http://superfund.ucsd.edu/outreach/). The GIS/3D tools we are using include ESRI's ArcGIS suite of products, Fledermaus 3D Visualization software, and the Panoram Theatre (a visualization center made available by Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal(IT)2). Our Outreach Core is leading a larger effort to build a Regional Workbench Consortium (RWBC, http://regionalworkbench.org). The RWBC focuses on the Southern California-Northern Baja California transborder region--especially the San Diego-Tijuana city-region and coastal zone. We are establishing a trusted Internet-based research portal and toolkit (i.e., workbench) to link knowledge to action in projects that require region-wide data integration and information sharing. Our aim is twofold: (1) create new forms of information and communications technology that can inspire and enable collaborative multidisciplinary research (i.e., studies designed to synergistically join environmental health sciences with biogeophysical sciences, engineering, social science and humanities), and (2) link this research to policy, planning, and education for sustainable city-region development. Our long term mission is to create more efficient, interactive, and equitable methods for integrating university-based science with the fast-changing needs of industry, government, non-profit and community-based organizations. We embrace a “learn-by-doing” approach and have three specific partnership-driven projects underway: toxics and water quality, infrastructure upgrading of low-income settlements along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the creation of planning and decision-support tools in partnership with regional agencies.