Arsenic & Old Places

 

Toxic Remediation: Pierce County featured a number of former industrial sites which were responsible for the spread of various types of particulate matter as collateral of doing business. This layout is modeled after a potential poster presentation of the data.

 

• Census data of young children (ten or under) is compared to lead and arsenic present in soil samples as a result of local smelters.

• The numerous soil samples were dissolved by location (collecting all the data into a common field) and separated into different datasets depending on heavy metal tested.

• The density at specific points were interpolated via kriging (a model often used for pollution) to find the expected value for the surrounding untested environments. The density of children was interpolated via IWD (inverted weight distance) where values are determined based upon weighted average of proximate points.

• The data for lead and arsenic was then compared to the density per square mile of children under ten and color-coordinated (the hotter tones correspond to the highest number of children and/or arsenic/lead parts per million)

 

 

• Depicted to the left is an early alternate file exported directly from ArcMap.

• ArcGIS's export features do not actually render the final product the way it appears on screen. Various slight tweaks have been made using freely available work around products. Though a white background is harsher on the eyes when depicted on a screen, The formatting flaws from ArcGIS have fewer obvious signs if it were printed out on white. (The notable mistakes include the white corners on rounded map edges and the locator map's background transparency failing to work.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Title courtesy of The Simpsons.