A framework for using geographic information systems technology for environmental risk assessment

Abstract

This paper argues that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related technologies are potentially very useful for environment risk assessment (ERA) in exploring the spatial relationships between various environmental risk factors and the condition and characteristics of the population. A framework is proposed to suggest how GIS can be used in ERA for all segments of the population, including children. Several GIS analytical functions, which are most useful for ERA, are reviewed and illustrated either by existing studies or examples. The paper also points out that no matter how powerful GIS may be, they are still exploratory tools to screen for relationships to be investigated further by clinical or experimental studies. By no means GIS alone can confirm the presence of an environmental risk factor and establish its relationship to a human biological reaction. The paper also highlights two difficult issues, spatial autocorrelation, and scale-dependency, in conducting spatial data analysis. Because the latter issue is more relevant to the use of GIS, multiscale level analysis is recommended and demonstrated to acknowledge the scale dependency nature of using spatial data.