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AERIAL PHOTO INTERPRETATION FOR SITE CHARACTERIZATION, ENVIRONMENTAL PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION CENTER (EPIC)
Citation:
Garofalo, D. AERIAL PHOTO INTERPRETATION FOR SITE CHARACTERIZATION, ENVIRONMENTAL PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION CENTER (EPIC). Presented at EPA GIS Day Celebration, Washington, DC, November 19, 2002.
Impact/Purpose:
The objectives of this task are to provide site-specific information on the condition and activities occurring at hazardous waste sites at a point in time or over a historical period; document these conditions and changes; provide guides in the form of reports, maps, and photographs for assisting in the safe cleanup of hazardous waste materials; and assist in emergency response and enforcement efforts when requested by client offices. Remote sensing technical support is provided to all EPA Regional Superfund Offices and OERR, and includes: hazardous waste disposal site characterization and mapping; annotated aerial photographs; and enforcement support. Funding will support two Interagency Agreements to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to support facility/maintenance costs and access to and use of equipment and classified data by the Landscape Ecology Branch/Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (LEB/EPIC) staff assigned to that location. Funding will also provide for the operation and maintenence of ESD's remote sensing and spatial data library/archive needed to support the various Superfund projects requested by EPA client offices during the year. Funding will also provide for a Senior Environmental Employee (SEE) to provide clerical support at the LEB/EPIC USGS location.
Extramural Superfund funding will also support R&D Superfund activities in remote sensing for ultimate use in the technical support program.
Description:
The Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) is a field station of the Landscape Ecology Branch (LEB), Environmental Sciences Division - Las Vegas, Office of Research and Development EPIC provides remote sensing technical support to help the Agency achieve its multi-media mission requirements. EPIC also performs research on existing and developing remote sensing systems in order to evaluate their capabilities for supporting EPA mission requirements, and develops new tools and methods for applying these systems to the solution of environmental problems. Products and services offered by EPIC include the search and acquisition of remote sensing data, its processing and analysis, and conversion into images, maps, and reports for use by EPA client offices. EPIC conducts site-specific to wide area landscape assessments for determining and documenting environmental status and trends and for relating these conditions and changes to both anthropogenic and natural processes. EPIC also provides remote sensing technology transfer support to EPA client offices.
EPIC completes approximately 150 site characterizations annually using current and historical aerial photographs. This work is done in support of EPA Regional and Program offices. Site characterization provides detailed information about a site and its history, often going back as many as 70 years in the past, and may include, depending upon the Region's request, information on: landscape characteristics including land use and land cover; sensitive habitats such as nearby wetlands and other water bodies; evidence of contamination at the site including stains, spills, breaches in lagoons; presence of barrels/drums, tanks or other potential pollutant sources; excavations and trenches; when a site became an active waste disposal site; how long the site was in operation; when waste disposal activity terminated; the current landscape ecological status of a site (and how it changed over time); presence of outfalls; and other detailed information on landscape and anthropogenic features and processes.