Environment and Human Health

• Introduction
• Publications
• Projects and Programs
• Databases
• Meetings and Conferences

Introduction

Many chronic health issues may relate directly to Earth processes and the environment. As the Nation's natural resource science agency, the USGS can play a significant role in understanding environmental contributions to diseases and human health. By knowing the geographic conditions (hydrology, soils, vegetation) necessary for the maintenance of specific pathogens in nature, one can use the landscape to identify the spatial and temporal distribution of disease risk use land characteristics and bioclimatic thresholds to map habitats of pathogenic agents and animal hosts.

Work by the USGS has contributed to understanding the effects of radon, asbestos, selenium, chromium, and uranium on human health. Ongoing research on bacterial and virus transport in ground water and bioaccumulation of metals such as arsenic, mercury, and lead also address public health issues. The USGS has considerable experience in conducting studies on the occurrence and distribution of natural and manmade organic chemicals that can affect human health. Human exposure to potentially toxic chemicals through plants and animals in the food chain is another area of concern in which the USGS can lend its expertise. Water Quality remains an important concern in health and medicine, and the USGS already has a significant role in helping others determine the best methods for monitoring drinking-water quality.

Strong partnerships with traditional health and environmental agencies are necessary to collaborate on problem solving. The USGS is building these partnerships through collaboration with agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, and the National Cancer Institute.

Publications

Fact Sheets

• FS-054-01 The Environment and Human Health: USGS Science for Solutions
• FS-012-01 Some Facts About Asbestos
• FS-004-01 Health Effects of Toxic Organic Compounds from Coal -- The Case of Balkan Endemic Nephropathy (BEN)
• FS-146-00 Mercury in the Environment
• FS-063-00 Arsenic in Ground-Water Resources of the United States
• FS-061-00 Mercury Contamination from Historic Gold Mining in California
• FS-135-98: Arsenic, Nitrate, and Chloride in Groundwater, Oakland County, Michigan
• FS-062-98: Radium-226 and Radium-228 in Shallow Ground Water, Southern New Jersey
• FS-028-98: Microbial Quality of Public-Water Supplies in the Ozark Plateaus Aquifer System, Missouri
• FS-055-98: Volatile Organic Compounds in Lake Tahoe, Nevada and California, July-September 1997
• FS-189-97: USGS Recent Highlights -- Environmental Effects on Human and Wildlife Health
• FS-102-97: Are walleye from Lake Roosevelt contaminated with mercury?
• FS-067-97: Pesticides in selected small streams in the Puget Sound Basin, 1987-1995
• FS-061-97: Predicting ground-water vulnerability to nitrate in the Puget Sound Basin
• FS-054-97: Public-Water Supplies in Massachusetts and Rhode Island: Investigations of Processess Affecting Source-Water Quality
• FS-047-97: USGS Drinking Water Initiative
• FS-205-96: Pesticides in public supply wells of the Central Columbia Plateau
• FS-204-96: Pesticides and volatile organic compounds in ground and surface water of the Palouse Subunit, Washington and Idaho
• FS-171-96: Pesticides found in ground water below orchards in the Quincy and Pasco Basins
• FS-122-96: Pesticides in Public Supply Wells of Washington State
• FS-092-96: Nitrate in the ground waters of the United States--Assessing the risk
• FS-241-95: Are agricultural pesticides in surface waters of the Central Columbia Plateau?
• FS-240-95: Agricultural pesticides found in ground water of the Quincy and Pasco basins
• FS-216-95: Mercury Contamination of Aquatic Ecosystems

Reports

• A National Assessment of Volatile Organic Chemicals in Major Aquifer Systems and Rivers - Recent MTBE Findings
• Amphibian Declines and Deformities
• Arsenic in Ground Water
• Mercury Bioaccumulation in Fish in a Region Affected by Historic Gold Mining: The South Yuba River, Deer Creek, and Bear River Watersheds, California, 1999
• National Reconnaissance of Emerging Contaminants in the Nation's Waters
• Occurrence of the Gasoline Oxygenate MTBE and BTEX Compounds in Urban Stormwater in the United States, 1991-95, USGS WRIR 96-4145

Projects and Programs

• Africa Data Dissemination Service
• Bear-Yuba Watersheds Interagency Abandoned Mine Lands Project
• Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) Program
• Characterization of DOC in Relation to Trihalomethane Formation Potential for Soil and Drainage Waters Associated with Agricultural and Shallow Flooded Wetland Land Uses
• Columbia Environmental Research Center
• Environmental Impact of Coal Utilization
• Mercury Research in the USGS
• National Atlas
• National Coal Quality Inventory/Database (NCQI)
• National Water Quality Assessment Program
• National Wildlife Health Center
• Overview: Environmental Mercury in California
• Toxic Substances Hydrology Program
• USGS Activities in Fallon, Nevada
• USGS Arsenic Studies Group
• USGS Drinking Water Programs
• USGS Studies at the World Trade Center after September 11, 2001
• Water and Homeland Security
• West Nile Virus

Databases

• Human Health Database

Meetings and Conferences

• Natural Science and Public Health: Prescription for a Better Environment -- A National Conference on USGS Health -Related Research (April 2003)
• Arsenic in New England: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference
• American Public Health Association
• Healthy Ecosystems, Healthy People -- biodiversity, ecosystem health and human health
• USGS Workshop on Arsenic in the Environment

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