Exposure potential of marsh units to environmental health stressors in Connecticut salt marshes

Release Date

2024-04-02

Ackerman, K.V., Defne, Z., and Ganju, N.K., 2023, Geospatial characterization of salt marshes in Connecticut (ver. 2.0, April 2024): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P96QND48.

This dataset displays the exposure potential to environmental health stressors in Connecticut salt marshes. Health stressors include natural and anthropogenic contaminants, pathogens, and viruses found in soils and sediments throughout the United States. Enhanced dispersion and concentration of these environmental health stressors in coastal regions can result from sea level rise and storm-derived disturbances. The combination of existing environmental health stressors and those mobilized by natural or anthropogenic disasters could adversely impact the health and resilience of coastal communities and ecosystems. Analysis of environmental health stressors is part of a comprehensive assessment to identify the factors and their weights in determining the vulnerability and resiliency of salt marshes. Exposure potential in Connecticut’s salt marshes was calculated with the Sediment-bound Contaminant Resiliency and Response (SCoRR) ranking system designed to define baseline and post-event sediment-bound environmental health stressors (Reilly and others, 2015). Industrial facilities obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) database were ranked based on their potential contaminant hazard. Ranks were based in part on previous work by Olsen and others (2013) and literature reviews. A 2000-meter search radius was used to identify nearby ranked facility locations.

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