Bryan Salsieder
GIS Applications Project 1
Introduction and Synopsis:
Our goal in this project was to investigate the high levels of Chromium-6 in
various drinking water sources throughout the nation. As a class, it was decided that
instead of the whole nation, that only a select few locations of comparable levels should
be used. We chose the states of Oklahoma, Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida, and
Nevada. We originally wanted to research specific cities within these states, but it
became easier to look at the whole state instead of a very specific area. After
researching further, we decided to also to include cancer rates in our study as
Chromium-6 is linked to cancer in those who ingest high amounts. Other factors that
were researched were land use, general socioeconomic population data, and aquifer
locations. Land use was looked at to determine if there was a particular land feature
that contributes to high amount of chromium and knowledge of where these sites
received their water was useful in potentially linking sites of high contamination together.
The socioeconomic factors were interesting because of the theory that poorer sections
of cities or states would have higher concentrations of Chromium-6 due to their lack of
funds for water treatment services. However, all of these factors being relevant hinged
on the correlation between Chromium-6 levels and cancer rates. Unfortunately, there
was not a reliable data set for the Chromium-6 levels in the counties we wanted to
study. So each student was assigned twenty-six counties to find the major water
sources and record the Chromium-6 levels in a giant spreadsheet. This spreadsheet
Bryan Salsieder
was then available for all the counties for each state and this became essential in the
group phase of this project.
Individual Contribution:
Every person in the class was assigned at least one variable to research from
one of the six states, although many people chose two to effectively cover all the data.
My personal contribution was the land use data for all of Wisconsin and the close up
view of Madison and Dane County. I also attempted to contribute to the Reno, NV
water sources, but found that someone else had also done the same research and I
ceded that aspect of the project to them because I had the land use map to call my own.
Finding data for Wisconsin was fairly easy through a quick internet search. I came
across the state run natural resource website which had, for free, the entire land use
data for the state in raster form. I simply downloaded it and combined a few attributes
to reduce the amount of busy color on the display. Since the city of study in Wisconsin
was Madison, I overlaid a shapefile of the Madison city limits, and using the Extract to
Mask tool, I was able to clip down the raster to approximately the borders of Madison so
the land use in the immediate area could be seen. For Reno, NV, I downloaded the
necessary shapefiles from census.gov as well as the water bodies in the area. After
some research through Reno's municipal sites, it was determined that Reno received its
water from the Truckee River, the main river leading from Lake Tahoe further
downstream. I made a shapefile that was just the Truckee River and highlighted it so it
became apparent that it was the main river and water source flowing through Reno.
Bryan Salsieder
These two maps were then uploaded to the Wiki space online as everyone else has
done.
Group Work:
Once all the data had been uploaded, groups were formed to cover a few
research questions about the data. I partnered with Jacob Cantrell to determine the
counties with the highest concentrations of Chromium-6 and the highest rate of cancer
in the six states the class had selected. We also hoped to show that higher Chromium6 amounts correlate to a high rate of cancers. Although we were hoping for this, it was
not the basis of our research; we only wanted to see what the top twenty counties over
the entire six states, and then the top five in each state individually for both Chromium-6
levels and cancer rates. Although there were folders for the basic shapefiles of the six
states, they were not all consistent with each other or not available, so our first step was
to utilize the census.gov TIGER lines to download the outlines of the counties within the
states and the United States state borders. The cancer rate data came from the public
class folders where we found complete health data of all the rates we needed and the
Chromium-6 data came from the compiled spreadsheet of everyone's researched data.
However, one thing we noticed about the data sets was that there was no information
for cancer rates in Nevada counties, only deaths from cancer. Nevada ended up being
a persistent problem in this project due to it not being used for the cancer rate shapefile
and its large county size giving the appearance of a larger area affected by high
Chromium-6 on the map. Our initial idea for the display maps was to have one map for
each state with the highest Chromium-6 counties and the highest cancer rate counties
Bryan Salsieder
being highlighted. However, the longer we thought about it, it ended up being too many
maps to display properly and it was decided that one map of the United States with the
various counties highlighted would be for the best. Initially we wanted to make the
layers transparent, one being red and the other blue, so that counties that a more of a
vivid purple would be the ones that had overlapping Chromium-6 levels and a high
cancer rate. This idea did not work as well as we had hoped so instead we set the
intervals in such a way that only the highest values would show up. We then overlaid
these on one another to see if there was any overlap.
Bryan Salsieder
Results:
The results were unexpected in that only one county had overlap of Chromium-6
levels and cancer rates. Otherwise, the top twenty counties were separate and at times
far from each other. This was the exact opposite of what were looking for, which was a
decent amount of the counties selected to have high levels of both Chromium-6 and
cancer rates. This leads to the conclusion that perhaps a high rate of Chromium-6 does
not significantly affect cancer rates overall.
Group Dynamic:
Since we have worked together previously throughout other classes, the group
dynamic between Jacob and myself is effective and cooperative. We both found the
pertinent data through the internet and our class folders. Most of my work was in the
creation of the ArcMap document and the exported .jpeg that is seen above. Jacob
dealt more with the Xcel spreadsheets and ordering the data to something useful and
easily displayed. The table of values at the end of this document was his work with
collaboration being only in the visuals of the table. Jacob was also the creator of the
graphs found with the tables as well. We both worked on the project in class during the
allotted time and out of class when our schedules allowed it. It was necessary to be
collaborative with this project because of the amount of data that we decided to analyze
and display. Overall, even if the resulting map did not produce the results we were
hoping for, it still produced results that are valid.
Bryan Salsieder
Conclusion:
As a first project in a class as open as this one is, I would say that it has been an
overall success. Perhaps not in achieving the goal we initially set out to prove, but a
success in that we learned how to work in a professional organized setting where
individuals do their own work to contribute to the whole. We then broke into smaller
groups to tackle smaller assigned tasks using the data set that we had created
previously. Every group had their own research question and our group tried to show
the top counties of Chromium-6 levels and cancer rates in hopes of showing some
correlation between the two variables. We found that there was very little correlation,
which is a perfectly viable result. Although Chromium-6 is a dangerous chemical and
maybe causes a specific type of cancer, it has not been shown in this experiment to
significantly impact overall cancer rates in our selected states of study.
Bryan Salsieder
County
State
County
Florida
Hamilton
7.686366
Florida
Florida
Madison
6.957542
Florida
Florida
Suwannee
6.408617
Florida
Florida
Sumter
4.914331
Florida
Florida
Martin
4.056983
Florida
Indiana
Marshall
15.65834
Indiana
Indiana
Ripley
14.27345
Indiana
Indiana
Fulton
12.70223
Indiana
Indiana
Union
9.593456
Indiana
Indiana
Warren
6.407189
Indiana
Nevada
Washoe
9.813911
Nevada
Nevada
White Pine
4.439409
Nevada
Nevada
Elko
3.933027
Nevada
Nevada
Carson City
2.884347
Nevada
Nevada
Clark
2.26756
Nevada
Oklahom
a
Oklahom
a
Oklahom
a
Oklahom
a
Oklahom
a
Texas
Cleveland
29.51448
Oklahoma
McClain
3.847614
Oklahoma
Canadian
3.450701
Oklahoma
Oklahoma
1.77013
Oklahoma
1.676133
Oklahoma
Texas
Kleberg
Ellis
Hudspeth
Chromium
State
20.2638
Texas
10.03307
Texas
Cancer
Rates
Union
County
Sumter
County
Lake County
1.2364
Marion
County
Polk County
0.5165
Benton
County
Blackford
County
Clark
County
Vigo County
0.5437
Fulton
County
Nye County
0.5116
Churchill
County
Carson City
0.0674
Lyon
County
Lincoln
County
Pawnee
County
Choctaw
County
Kay County
0.0664
Murray
County
Garvin
County
Anderson
County
Andrews
County
0.5379
0.5568
0.5243
0.506
0.5249
0.5151
0.5142
0.0727
0.0674
0.063
0.5881
0.5632
0.5386
0.5368
0.4506
0.4784
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Texas
Duval
7.534914
Texas
Texas
Armstrong
5.925155
Texas
Texas
Hansford
5.854986
Texas
Wisconsin
Winnebago
8.073484
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Washington
7.976221
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Richland
6.599101
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Sheboygan
3.658314
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Waushara
2.357122
Wisconsin
Angelina
County
Aransas
County
Archer
County
Menomine
e County
Marquette
County
Oneida
County
Crawford
County
Door
County
Table 1: Top 5 Counties in respect to Chromium-6 levels and Cancer Rates
35
30
25
Florida Chromium
Indiana Chromium
20
Nevada Chromium
15
Oklahoma Chromium
Texas Chromium
10
Wisconsin Chromium
5
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Figure 1: Chromium-6 Levels as a Percentage of Total State Levels
0.5002
0.4867
0.4328
0.6316
0.6004
0.544
0.5388
0.5265
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1.4
1.2
Florida
1
Indiana
0.8
Nevada
0.6
Oklahoma
0.4
Texas
Wisconsin
0.2
0
0
1
2
3
Figure 2: Cancer Rates in the Selected Counties
4
5
6