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Read the highlights or listen to the podcasts to learn more about how risk management research helps to support the protection of human health and the environment.
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| 2011 |
| Crystal Ball Technology: Visualizing Land-Use Futures -
EPA land management specialists are helping to generate virtual landscape scenarios for communities in the Farmington Bay Wetlands area of the Great Salt Lake that will enable residents to ‘see’ the ecological consequences of current land use practices, projected over the next 20 years. The scenarios—which include alternative sustainable views of the same landscape—are created by the Alternative Futures Analysis, a computerized assessment tool that combines with Geographic Information Systems to visually portray the long-term impacts of varying developmental decisions on a community’s ecosystem and quality of life.
Podcast (MP3) (6:13 min, 5.7 MB) |
| Harnessing Water, Waste and Energy Systems for Sustainability -
Drinking water, wastewater, and energy are three totally interrelated systems in municipal life. Based on this fact, an interdisciplinary research project, cooperatively sponsored by EPA, is evaluating the three systems and their potential links to sustainable technologies. A key goal of the project is to show how green water strategies of decentralization, recovery, and reuse can be matched with energy conservation strategies to create sustainable green buildings.
Podcast (MP3) (6:24 min, 5.9 MB) |
| From Source to Tap:Three Drinking Water Research Challenges -
Most Americans take safe drinking water for granted, without giving much thought to the research effort required to keep it that way. For nearly 100 years, biologists, chemists, engineers and other environmental scientists have been meeting the challenges posed by natural and man-made threats to safe and plentiful drinking water. EPA water researchers can point to many scientific accomplishments during that period, but many challenges remain.
Podcast (MP3) (5:32 min, 5.1 MB) |
| Researchers Develop Innovative Tools In Drinking Water Treatment Studies -
EPA drinking water specialists are developing a unique approach to a long-standing issue in the treatment of drinking water—the inability to test treatment technologies against standardized water sources to benchmark the improvements in new technologies. To address this lack, the EPA team is working on the standardization of natural organic matter (NOM) in source waters.
Podcast (MP3) (4:55 min, 4.5 MB) |
New DNA Sequencing Technology Aids Fecal Pollution Management -
EPA scientists are using state-of-the-art DNA sequencing technologies to research fecal bacterial communities that have the potential to affect the U.S. beef and dairy industry, as well as future recreational water quality monitoring criteria. Their most recent effort is published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology in May 2011. Results of this study show promise for pinpointing and managing sources of fecal pollution not only in the U.S. but worldwide.
Podcast (MP3) (3:51 min, 3.5 MB)
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| A Life Cycle Assessment to Compare Paper and Electronic U.C. Annual Reports -
The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Cincinnati recently partnered with EPA researchers to evaluate the economic and environmental impacts of the college's new electronic annual report compared to the previous printed version. Using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, the study found significant reductions in costs and environmental impacts for the electronic version.
Podcast (MP3) (4:40 min, 4.3 MB) |
| SHEM: Safety and Health Team at Work -
Environmental researchers, whether in the laboratory or in the field, are potentially at risk from the hazardous pollutants they measure and monitor. To ensure the safety of scientists—as well as the supporting employee force behind their work—EPA’s Safety, Health and Environmental Management (SHEM) program administers a broad range of risk management activities. The goal: “To save the people who are saving the world.”
Podcast (MP3) (5:29 min, 5.0 MB) |
| Risk Management Researchers Support State Cleanup Projects -
EPA regional and state offices often call upon laboratory-based researchers whenever scientific or engineering assistance is needed for state remediation projects. Whether these involve hot-spot landfills, contaminated ground waters, polluted lakes, or Superfund sites, EPA risk management researchers bring their expertise to bear on local cleanup and restoration projects.
Podcast (MP3) (5:57 min, 5.5 MB) |
Earth Day 2011–Looking Back, Looking Forward -
The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970. In the years since then, the United States and its frontline environmental agent—the Environmental Protection Agency—have come a very long way toward preserving our finite resources of clean air, water, and land. Earth Day 2011 provides a perspective on past EPA successes, especially the scientific accomplishments that laid the foundation for legislative action, and for the environmental tools and technologies in use today. But Earth Day also looks ahead to a new vision of sustainability. |
| Aerostat Emissions Sampling of Gulf Oil In Situ Burning - Researchers from EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory employed aerostat (balloon) sampling technology to measure emissions from in situ burning of waterborne oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Anchored to an oil rig utility ship, the sampling package was carried aloft by a polyurethane/nylon balloon and maneuvered into plumes emitted from purposely burned surface oil.
Podcast (MP3) (5:48 min, 5.3 MB) |
| Safe Drinking Water Technology—A Century of Innovation – The early decades of the 20th century marked the birth of legislative protection of U.S. drinking water, including new federal laws to protect forest lands as public water resources and the funding of public health research on “human diseases related to sewage and the pollution of streams and lakes."
Podcast (MP3) (7:50 min, 7.2 MB) |
| Vegetative Barriers—Seeking to Reduce Roadside Air Pollutants - Whether they are called wind breaks or hedge rows or shelterbelts, vegetative barriers of trees and other plants are widely used for their ability to moderate wind speed and to filter noise, odors, and blowing snow, among other benefits. Air quality researchers in the National Risk Management Research Laboratory are studying the potential of roadside vegetative barriers for moderating concentrations of airborne pollutants emitted by vehicular traffic.
Podcast (MP3) (5:58 min, 5.5 MB) |
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| 2010 |
Monitoring the Ohio River for Greenhouse Gas Emissions – Microbial activity in streams and rivers produces nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. But the importance of these systems in the global nitrous oxide budget is not well known. Most research on nitrous oxide emissions from freshwaters has been conducted in small streams and rivers where microbial activity is largely restricted to the sediments. In an investigation of nitrous oxide emissions from large rivers, EPA researchers from the National Risk Management Research Laboratory found that the water column in the Ohio River produces twice as much nitrous oxide as the river sediments.
Podcast (MP3) (4:32 min, 4.2 MB) |
Measuring Emissions From Alternative Fuels – Vehicles that use alternative fuels, such as ethanol blend gasoline and biodiesel, are the subject of ongoing research by air quality scientists in EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory. Emissions from these two most commonly available fuels are being examined for their potential impacts on environmental and human health.
Podcast (MP3) (3:46 min, 3.5 MB) |
Students Use EPA Decision Support Tool in Panama Waste Management Study – EPA’s Sustainable Materials And Residuals ManagemenT Decision Support Tool (SMART-DST) was developed by researchers in the National Risk Management Research Laboratory to encourage more sustainable management of solid waste. The DST provides a science-based approach to municipal waste management, using life-cycle assessments to evaluate energy, climate change pollutants, air criteria pollutants, and waterborne pollutants.
Podcast (MP3) (8:38 min, 7.90 MB) |
The PLACES Program—Defining the Sustainable Future – EPA researchers have developed a program called PLACES (Planning Land And Communities to be Environmentally Sustainable). The PLACES program is a 50-point planning model based on a matrix of three key systems—environmental, social and economic—that communities can adopt to track the incremental and cumulative human impacts on the sustainability of natural resources.
Podcast (MP3) (6:34 min, 6.00 MB) |
ETV: Pioneer in Global Verification of Technology – Almost from its birth 15 years ago, EPA?s Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program has promoted the sharing of information across national boundaries. This outreach program began as a one-way effort with the U.S. ETV telling its story to other countries. Today, more than a dozen countries participate in a global exchange of ETV information, thanks, in part, to the pioneering work of the U.S. program.
Podcast (MP3) (6:08 min, 5.62 MB) |
From Lab to Consumer—EPA Research at Work – Some environmental scientists never see the end result of their work; typically, their findings become a piece of a larger puzzle. But for drinking water specialists at EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory, the effort to discover the best available technology for arsenic removal in small communities can be readily traced from the laboratory studies to the actual adoption by local water utilities.
Podcast (MP3) (5:17 min, 4.84 MB) |
Restoring Degraded Industrial Waterways – For decades American waterways have been used as dumping grounds for industrial and community wastes. Beginning in the 1970s, Federal Clean Water Act regulations helped to protect water resources, but virtually every U.S. industrial waterway has inherited a legacy of contaminated sediments. A notable example is the Grand Calumet River, near Chicago, which flows into Lake Michigan through one of the largest industrial complexes in the nation.
Podcast (MP3) (7:38 min, 7.10 MB) |
Remote Observation and Monitoring of Genetically Modified Crops—A New Approach to Sustainability – EPA researchers are exploring the use of remotely sensed imagery to detect changes in the foliage of genetically modified (GM) food crops as a measure of infestation by pest insects. Researchers are using patented imaging technology to monitor vegetation changes and plant stress by means of an aircraft-mounted hyperspectral sensor and satellite imagery.
Podcast (MP3) (5:01 min, 4.60 MB) |
Solid-fuel Cook Stoves: Gauging Performance and Emissions – Researchers have tested a number of household cook stove and fuel combinations for performance and pollutant emissions. Studies showed that burning solid fuels typically produces substantial greenhouse gases and toxic air pollutants, even in supposedly improved stove models.
Podcast (MP3) (3:18 min, 3.01 MB) |
Concrete Sewer Pipe Vulnerable to Corrosion – Under certain conditions, the microorganisms that are naturally present in urban wastewater systems can convert hydrogen sulfide in the water to sulfuric acid. When this happens, even durable concrete pipes are vulnerable to corrosion.
Podcast (MP3) (3:57 min, 3.62 MB) |
Sustainability Metrics — A Test – EPA researchers have developed a multidisciplinary method for measuring movement toward—or away from—sustainability across a region for a 26-year period. Sustainability specialists have assembled a data set for a region in south-central Colorado that includes economic, social, and environmental variables.
Podcast (MP3) (5:42 min, 5.22 MB) |
SPECIATE 4.2—Profiling Air Pollution Species and Sources – SPECIATE is EPA’s repository of profiles of volatile organic gas and particulate matter air pollution sources. This valuable repository has helped users to characterize air emissions by species and source for more than 20 years. The recently updated version—SPECIATE 4.2—contains three categories of air pollutants: Particulate Matter (e.g., dust and ash), Volatile Organic Compounds (e.g., benzene, toluene), and Other Gases (e.g., mercury, nitrogen oxides).
Podcast (MP3) (5:34 min, 5.1 MB) |
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