Skip common site navigation and headers
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Exposure Research
Begin Hierarchical Links EPA Home > Research & Development > Exposure Research > Science Report on Exposure Research and Development End Hierarchical Links

 

Science Report on Exposure Research and Development

August 2004

Observations of the Earth – Leading Science and Technology

Understanding the dynamic processes that occur on the Earth is instrumental to improving our quality of life and sustainability of the environment in developing countries. One approach – that can make a world of difference – is collaborative networks focused on solving environmental problems. In his 500-day plan, EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt outlined his goals for the Agency including positioning the Agency as a international champion for an Earth Observing System. Environmental professionals in the Agency's research component (including modelers, spatial analysts, and others) are leading the EPA's participation in an international collaborative network called the Global Earth Observing System of Systems, or GEOSS. GEOSS is a large national and international cooperative effort that brings together existing and new hardware and software to produce environmental data and information for users. The EPA GEOSS web site is a building block in an international collaborative network that brings together data, models, and decision support tools to help us better understand and protect the air, water and land. EPA Administrator Leavitt and NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher, Jr., introduced GEOSS to the public at the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting held in June 2004.

DEARS in Michigan

EPA's particulate matter (PM) research program is multi-faceted. A new component is the Detroit Exposure and Aerosol Research Study (DEARS), a three-year investigation into the relationship of selected air pollutant concentrations and their sources. PM will be measured at community monitoring stations and compared to measurements in various neighborhoods in Wayne County, Michigan. DEARS is designed to identify the contributions made from various pollutant sources at the community and neighborhood levels. Recruitment for the first year of study began in July 2004. Upon completion in 2007, the DEARS will produce more than 1200 days' worth of data from distinct neighborhoods.

Detection Dog – Searching for Sources of Indoor Air Contamination

Work at the EPA's exposure research laboratory in Athens, GA, is underway to evaluate the utility and capabilities of man's best friend to protect human health. Sammy, a three-year old Swedish Vallhund, is the first participant in the Agency's investigation into using a dog to detect indoor air contamination.

photo of Sammy on the trail
Rapid Detection Method for Contaminants in Beach Waters

A day at the beach is not always a picnic. Beach waters can contain a variety of human pathogens that can cause illness or disease in beachgoers. The BEACH (Beaches, Environmental Assessments, and Coastal Health) Act of 2000 tasked EPA with developing new rapid-detection methods for monitoring water quality, determining the relationship between swimmer health and water quality, and providing the public with guidelines for beach water safety. EPA scientists are collaborating to develop and apply new monitoring protocols and rapid detection methods to understand the relationship between exposure to polluted recreational waters and human health effects. This collaboration – the National Epidemiological and Environmental Assessment Recreational (NEEAR) Water Study – is leading to faster and more meaningful monitoring approaches that improve human health by protecting the public from exposure to unsafe recreational water.

Background/Additional Information
Meet Two Senior Exposure Researchers

Meeting the evolving needs of environmental protection requires a dynamic research and development program characterized by integrated scientific approaches, research programs, and innovative thinking. Let us introduce two senior scientists who are directing exposure research in two key areas at EPA.

Dr. Halűk Özkaynak - is leading research and development in human exposure and the use of reliable exposure estimation models that inform us about the impact of exposure on potential human health outcomes. Dr. Özkaynak is experienced in exposure assessment and community health studies, including the National Human Exposure Assessment Survey (NHEXAS) sponsored by EPA. His leadership and expertise are vital to researchers in risk assessment, to decision makers in environmental regulatory bodies, and to the general public. [Learn More]

Dr. K. Bruce Jones sees and thinks about landscapes differently than most people. Dr. Jones leads research and development of spatial analysis, landscape ecology, and geographic information systems, and applies them to a wide variety of environmental issues confronting EPA. While there is general agreement that nature provides us with an impressive collection of landscapes that bring people and other organisms together, Dr. Jones, and his colleagues in the Agency and throughout the world, view and study them as ecological systems. Their work provides tools that help maintain structure, quality, and completeness of the Earth's ecological systems. [Learn More]

Computational Environmental Science Center of Excellence

The EPA's exposure research and development laboratory, and the Agency's IT/IM professionals are launching the Center of Excellence for Computational Environmental Science to integrate cutting-edge science and emerging IT solutions. The Center will transform environmental decision-making by providing a flexible, dynamic computing and information infrastructure to ensure optimized and appropriate access to EPA resources by partnering organizations.

Partnerships Between States and EPA Address Air Quality Issues

To demonstrate the capabilities of the Center of Excellence for Computational Environmental Science, EPA, NOAA, NASA, CDC, and the State of New York have formed partnerships to improve the Nation's health by addressing air quality. New York, like other states, has a variety of needs that can be met through this partnership including allowing and facilitating access to advanced air quality decision support tools and air quality forecasting models. When combined with ground level monitoring, enhanced air quality modeling tools and satellite observations, federal and state environmental and health officials will investigate the relationships between air quality and public health data. (PDF, 1 page, 299 KB) The overall goal is to expand the use of air quality simulation and prediction capabilities at the state and regional levels. Enabled by grid computing available through the Center, access to computational capabilities and datasets needed to run state-of-the-science models will allow manipulation and analyses never before imagined.

Exposure Research Provides Technical Support for EPA's Clean Water Act

The EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the total maximum daily load (TMDL) limits that are critical to achieving healthy watersheds nationwide. A TMDL is defined as the amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive and still meet water quality standards. States and local governments are responsible for implementing these standards. EPA's Watershed and Water Quality Modeling Technical Support Center, staffed by the exposure research laboratory in Athens, GA, supports their efforts to implement section 303 of the CWA which requires they identify waters not currently meeting established water quality standards and to set TMDLs for each pollutant. [Learn More]

Don't be Surprised to See an EPA Microbiologist at Your Favorite Fishing Spot

One of EPA's laboratories in Cincinnati specializes in research that explores the interface between ecology and molecular biology to describe the condition of watershed ecosystems. Using this expertise, the ecologists, toxicologists, and biochemists were among the first to attempt an ecoregional scale assessment of molecular indicators in fish. They develop suites of biological indicators to describe the conditions of watershed ecosystems and to quantify the extent, magnitude and sources of exposure of ecosystem components to chemical, biological and physical stressors throughout the U.S.

Recently Added Exposure Research Web Links

To subscribe to this newslestter send an e-mail to nerlscience-join@lists.epa.gov or go to https://lists.epa.gov/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=nerlscience and select the "Join nerlscience" option.

Learn about EPA's exposure research and development laboratories; our mission, expertise and projects.

 

Exposure Research Home

Atmospheric Modeling | Ecological Exposure Research | Ecosystems Research | Environmental Sciences
Human Exposure & Atmospheric Sciences | Microbiological & Chemical Exposure Assessment Research

 
Begin Site Footer

EPA Home | Privacy and Security Notice | Contact Us