Hypothetical transportation accidents must be addressed in documents prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act as amended or in other environmentally related documents when the transportation of radioactive materials is considered. Estimating the potential human health consequences from the release and dispersion of radioactive materials following such an accident involves a number of interrelated computational models and a variety of input parameters. The RISKIND radiological transportation risk program was developed to provide these types of estimates for local scenarios. However, it is often difficult to gain a full understanding of the initial problem and consequences by looking solely at numerical input and tables of results. To make better informed decisions, visualization of the site-specific geographic area and the potential spread of contamination can provide greater understanding. Thus, a geographic information system (GIS) component was added to RISKIND to provide visualization capabilities as well as site-specific and computational benefits. The SylvanMaps?/OCX map control was added to provide the GIS capabilities. With the map control, RISKIND is distributed for use and runs as a single application on personal computers running current Microsoft? Windows operating system. In the past, the integration of human health risk models with GIS had been done manually, by employing standalone GIS systems or large workstation or mainframe computers. The mapping capability added to RISKIND uses readily available cartographic data to permit visualization of the area surrounding a hypothetical accident location. An estimate of the atmospherically dispersed contaminant plume can be superimposed on a local area map to give the analyst, stakeholders, and decision-makers a better perspective of the results. Extensive map customization capabilities are provided for analysis and presentation. The map component also allows for an analysis that is more site-specific. In addition, site-specific population data can now be managed by the map control and then used by RISKIND in computing risk. Users do not need to have extensive GIS experience to use the GIS capabilities.
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