Ukraine Priority Environmental Hazards Project

Proximity Analysis 

I collaborated with the AQUA Watch organization on a project, which was a subset of a larger environmental initiative led by the World Bank. Our primary objective was to map regions affected by war-related damages during Russia's invasion, particularly focusing on their proximity to surface water resources. This would facilitate in prioritizing restoration efforts post-conflict. The data detailing these damaged locations was sourced from Ecodozor, an entity that has identified and classified various hazards resulting from wartime damage.

I contributed to the development of a map that visually illustrates the proximity of diverse war damage types to surface water locales in Ukraine's southern region. On this map, sites of damage (including all damage varieties and those specific to water treatment plants) are segregated into categories based on their distance from major surface water bodies. We've also incorporated population density metrics to provide insights into potential risk levels for residents.

 Residential Housing Suitability Analysis 

The two maps below are a mock suitability analysis, created using ArcGIS Pro, for housing development in Cottage Grove, WI. Three main factors considered are basement scale, land use availability, and the slope of the land. The two images are vector-based and raster-based respectively.  Suitability score rank from high to low, representing how suitable the housing units are for residential purposes.

GIS in Environmental Justice 

The map below was created using basic geoprocessing tools in ArcGIS Pro such as buffer, clipping, and attribute selection. It shows the superfund sites and the neighborhoods that are affected. The result indicates that the data provided is not conclusive enough to indicate any environmental injustice related to the superfund impacts in Madison. 

GIS in Environemntal Conservation

The two maps below are created using ArcGIS Pro by importing Circuitscape and Linkage Mapper. The two imported models help visualize habitat connectivities, which is crucial for maintaining biodiversity and supporting ecosystem function. The model essentially treats habitats as connective surfaces and predicts important aspects of movements. 

The maps below indicate the connectivity of bobolinks' habitat in Yahara watershed area by mapping the Cost Weighted Distance and barrier value, which indicates risks of disconnection. 

GIS in Environmental Conservation

The following map is created by performing basic geoprocessing skills such as clip, buffer, intersect and calculate geometry. 

By analyzing the proximity to surface streams and the slope of crop fields, which are some of the leading factors contributing to groundwater contamination in the Mammoth Cave watershed (karse geology), I generated a map displaying potential sites of pollution.