A Remote Sensing and GIS-assisted Spatial Decision Support System for Hazardous Waste Site Monitoring

Abstract

Humans produce large amounts of waste that must be processed or stored so that it does not contaminate the environment. When hazardous wastes are stored, waste site monitoring is typically conducted in situ which can lead to a serious time lag between the onset of a problem and detection. A Remote Sensing and GIS-assisted Spatial Decision Support System for Hazardous Waste Site Monitoring was developed to improve hazardous waste site management. The system was designed to be recursive, flexible, and integrative. It is recursive because the system is implemented iteratively until the risk assessment subsystem determines that an event is no longer a problem to the surrounding human population or to the environment. It is flexible in that it can be adapted to monitor a variety of hazardous waste sites. The system is integrative because it incorporates a number of different data types and sources (e.g., multispectral and lidar remote sensor data, numerous type of thematic information, and production rules), modules, and human expert knowledge of the hazardous waste sites. The system was developed for monitoring hazardous wastes on the Savannah River National Laboratory near Aiken, South Carolina.