EPA Research Updates
Fifteen small businesses are getting a combined $1.6 million from EPA’s Small Business Innovation Research program. Businesses will use the Phase 1 award money to develop technologies that provide sustainable solutions for environmental issues.
Satellite imagery is helping us find harmful algal blooms earlier to keep the public safe. The Cyanobacteria Assessment Network (CyAN), a project involving EPA, NASA, NOAA, and USGS, uses historical and current satellite data to provide an early warning for harmful algal blooms in freshwater. Since 2015, CyAN imagery has detected algal blooms in Ohio, Florida, California, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island before traditional monitoring efforts alerted watershed managers.
What is the public health and economic cost of air pollution from wildland fires? Researchers from EPA and NC State University, the University of Sydney, and the University of Tasmania recently determined that thousands of premature deaths and illnesses were caused by air pollution from wildfire smoke over a five-year period. The economic cost of these impacts is in the tens of billions of dollars.
Scientists at EPA’s Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Center in Ada, Oklahoma are conducting world-class research to better protect our drinking water. The research center has specialized laboratories and tools to investigate and improve EPA’s ability to monitor, assess, and model contaminants in underground drinking water sources. Learn more about the center.
EPA scientists developed an interactive board game called Generate! to explore energy choices and the environment. Players can learn the costs and benefits of the energy choices we make, find out what happens if the mix of energy sources changes in the future, and learn what energy choices mean for our climate, air, water, and overall environmental quality. Find the printed materials here.
Researchers need to understand how complex
mixtures of air pollutants are formed, transported, and eventually removed from
the atmosphere. EPA’s Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modeling
System, a computational tool that models multiple air pollutants and a variety
of air toxics, has been updated to support research in this area.
EPA is soliciting
nominations for people qualified in the area of human health bioethics and
biostatistics to serve on the Human Studies Review Board. For more
information, read the Request for Nominations to the Human Studies Review
Board, 2017, or the announcement at docket # EPA-HQ-ORD-2015-0239 (EXIT).
Meet Our Researchers
 Meet EPA Scientist Rebecca Dodder, Ph.D.
Dr. Rebecca Dodder received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for her innovative approach to evaluating current and emerging environmental challenges and opportunities related to energy production and use in the United States. Learn more about her research.
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Events
Webinar: EPA Tools and Resources Webinar: EnviroAtlas
Tuesday, October 17, 2017 | 3:00 PM ET
EnviroAtlas is a web-based decision support tool that combines maps, analysis tools, downloadable data, and informational resources that states, tribes, communities, and individuals can use to help inform policy and planning decisions that impact the places where people live, learn, work, and play. Interested in learning about how to use EnviroAtlas in real-world contexts?
Register here.
Webinar: Integrated Decision Support Tool (i-DST) for Life Cycle Cost Assessment of Grey and Green Stormwater Management Infrastructure
Wednesday, October 25, 2017 | 2:00 PM ET
This presentation will highlight National Priorities grantee work from Colorado School of Mines on the development of a planning-level, integrated decision support tool, i-DST, which contains modules that simulate continuous runoff and water quality, using historical climate data and under different climate scenarios. The developed i-DST will also use a multiple-criteria decision analysis to optimize stormwater infrastructure based on user-defined institutional barriers, and economic, environmental, and societal objectives.
Register here.
Webinar: State Acceptance of UV Disinfection Technologies
Tuesday, October 31, 2017 | 2:00 PM ET
EPA’s Office of Water will share collaborative efforts with several states to identify a set of common technical priorities for review and approval of UV equipment installation and ongoing compliance monitoring. They will also identify some of the unique challenges that states face when evaluating UV water treatment technologies. EPA’s Office of Research and Development will then discuss aspects of new UV validation testing approaches for disinfection applications of Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and viruses using various test microbes.
Register here.
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