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Benefits of GEOSS in Washington

In Washington, Earth Observations will:

Help protect the coastal fisheries by predicting the preferred fish habitats; thereby, giving commercial and recreational fishermen critical information as to where fish are in abundance which, in turn, will help sustain the financial income of $3.4 billion for commercial and the $20 billion in recreational fishing each year.

Assist in the protection of endangered or scarce fish resources such as salmon fisheries. By tagging and tracking fish in near real time, Earth Observations helps improve the understanding of fish habitats and cycles, increasing our ability to protect their habitats.

The economic value added to the national economy by the commercial fishing industry is approximately $28.5 billion yearly. Approximately 17 million Americans engage in marine fishing as a recreational activity and spend approximately $25 billion per year on fishing related activities.1

Expand the ability to predict volcanic eruptions and seismic events through the integration of international Earth observation data sets. Better forecasting helps reduce the cost of damage to property and loss of life.

Forest, property, transport, agriculture, and clean-up losses from the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens totaled to nearly $1 billion (in 1980 dollars).2

Integrate satellite images and water quality models that will help pinpoint beach areas impacted by environmental pollutants such as aquatic blooms and oil spills.

Travel and tourism is the Nation's largest employer and second largest contributor to the GDP, generating over $700 billion annually. Beaches are the leading tourist destination, with coastal states earning 85 percent of all U.S. tourism revenues. Approximately 180 million people vacation and recreate along U.S. coasts every year.3

Benefit forestry and agriculture by monitoring soil moisture content, rates of fertilizer application, field fertility, and plant diseases; thereby, making sustainable agriculture more manageable for both large and small scale farmers.

Enable state and local air quality forecasters to issue to the public more timely, accurate, and site-specific warnings about episodes of poor air quality so that people (especially the sensitive population) may take prudent actions to protect their health. This information also helps Washington's officials decide on best air quality management practices.

It is estimated that 31 million Americans including 9 million children have asthma. Ground level ozone in the summer time is the chief cause for poor air quality warnings and human exposure to ozone is known to aggravate asthma. Another component of air, airborne particulate matter, is associated with increased hospital admissions and emergency room visits for people with heart and lung disease and increased work and school absences.4

Children with asthma miss more than 14 million school days annually and asthma accounts for an estimated 14.5 million lost work days per year.5

In 2000, the 15 states with the highest rates of current asthma prevalence were Arizona, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.6

Assist western states in tracking transcontinental and international pollutants.

Be critical in the prediction of wildfire tracking, smoke plume direction, and air quality effects. Earth Observations will also allow prediction of emergency costs for lost property and habitat, fire fighting, rebuilding, and the economic costs of human health impact from smoke inhalation.

Severe fire seasons due to drought and frequent winds can result in billions of dollars in damages. The Western Fire of Season Spring-Summer 2000 resulted in nearly seven million acres burned and an estimated $2 billion in damage costs (includes fire suppression).7

Enhance meteorological modeling of small-scale weather events, precipitation and storm tracking; create a better understanding of soil moisture available to crops, and understand weather related crop damage and its extent.

Average annual damage from hurricanes and floods is $6.3 billion nationally, of which:

Monitor drought conditions for agriculture and forestry and help farmers, agribusiness, and local water management authorities better manage water resources.

Drought is estimated to result in average annual losses to all sectors of the economy of between $6-8 billion nationally.9

Aid in meteorological predictions of El Niño events and other high and lower water years; thereby, helping to manage drought years, major spring floods, and water levels in streams and lakes that receive snow pack runoff.

Overall, the 1997-1998 El Niño is estimated to have had total U.S. economic impacts on the order of $25 billion.10



1 Fisheries of the United States, 2000, 2001, 2002, http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/. Marine Angler Expenditures in the Northeast Region 1998. NOAA Tech Memo No. NMFS-F/SPO-47.

2 Washington State Department of Commerce and Economic Development Research Division.

3 Leeworthy, Vernon R., Preliminary Estimates from Versions 1-6: Coastal Recreation Participation, National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE) 2000, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin-istration, NOAA Oceans and Coasts, Special Projects Office. Website: http://marineeconomics.noaa.gov.

4 U.S. Centers for Disease Control

5 CDC. Surveillance for asthma: United States, 1980-1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2002;51(SS01):1-13

6 CDC. Self-reported asthma prevalence among adults: United States, 2000. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. August 17, 2001;50(32):682-686.

7 Economic Impacts of Drought and the Benefits of NOAA's Drought Forecasting Services, NOAA Magazine, September 17, 2002. Website: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/magazine/stories/mag51.htm.

8 National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Environmental and Societal Impacts Group, and the Atmospheric Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society, 2001, Extreme Weather Sourcebook 2001: Economic and Other Societal Impacts Related to Hurricanes, Floods, Tornadoes, Lightning, and Other U.S. Weather Phenomena, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo. Available only online at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/sourcebook/data.html

9 Economic Impacts of Drought and the Benefits of NOAA's Drought Forecasting Services, NOAA Magazine, September 17, 2002. Website: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/magazine/stories/mag51.htm.

10 Changnon, Stanley A., ed. El Niño 1997-1998; The Climate Event of the Century, Oxford University Press, 2000.

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