Skip Navigation
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Use this QR code to view the newest version of this document
Use this QR code to view the newest version of this document

Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Geostatistics and GIS: tools for characterizing environmental contamination.

Authors: Henshaw, Shannon L; Curriero, Frank C; Shields, Timothy M; Glass, Gregory E; Strickland, Paul T; Breysse, Patrick N

Published In J Med Syst, (2004 Aug)

Abstract: Geostatistics is a set of statistical techniques used in the analysis of georeferenced data that can be applied to environmental contamination and remediation studies. In this study, the 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene (DDE) contamination at a Superfund site in western Maryland is evaluated. Concern about the site and its future clean up has triggered interest within the community because residential development surrounds the area. Spatial statistical methods, of which geostatistics is a subset, are becoming increasingly popular, in part due to the availability of geographic information system (GIS) software in a variety of application packages. In this article, the joint use of ArcGIS software and the R statistical computing environment are demonstrated as an approach for comprehensive geostatistical analyses. The spatial regression method, kriging, is used to provide predictions of DDE levels at unsampled locations both within the site and the surrounding areas where residential development is ongoing.

PubMed ID: 15366239 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Dichlorodiphenyl Dichloroethylene/analysis; Environmental Monitoring/instrumentation*; Environmental Monitoring/methods*; Environmental Pollutants/analysis; Geographic Information Systems/statistics & numerical data*; Insecticides/analysis; Maryland; Models, Statistical*

Back
to Top