Participants

• Judy Pederson, Ph.D., MIT

• Scott FitzGerald, MS MIT, Daylor Consultants

• Emilie Hung, M. Eng

Objectives

• To develop an interactive GIS system that will facilitate the weighting and visualization of tradeoffs involved in siting dredged material disposal areas in Boston Harbor.

• To develop a website to visualize and manage information as it flows from engineers and scientists to the public and policy makers.

• To determine if these information technologies are effective tools to improve engineering analysis, policy decisions, and public participation.

Approach

Although the Boston Harbor Navigation Improvement Project (BHNIP) has identified and is testing a trench and cover method to handle contaminated sediments, this is a one time solution; solutions that would accomodate future maintenance dredging projects in Boston Harbor and for projects of all types elsewhere. Traditional methods for siting dredged material disposal areas generally start from a large but discrete universe of possible sites and then apply a set of predetermined criteria to reduce that universe down to a ëshort listí of sites for review during the Environmental Impact Review/Statement (EIR/S) process. The public has only limited participation in this process and, as a result, often does not understand the site selection process/criteria which leads to skepticism or opposition.

The emergence of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software for the desktop PC provides an inexpensive tool for manipulating the spatial data typical of siting decisions. A GIS can assist decision making through the visualization of data layers of interest to the public and mangers, such as sediment contamination, habitats, sediment type, bathymetry, special interest areas, and physical oceanography. An interactive GIS application is being developed with the objective of broadening the universe of possible sites to include a continuous region and to allow for community input in the beginning stages of the siting process. This GIS application incorporates scientifically derived data and analysis with tools to a) allow interested parties to weight the interests involved and examine the resulting tradeoffs inherent in any decision and b) retain a memory of past weights and decisions.

Because GIS software is not used by many agencies and the general public, it will be made available through the Web to allow for wide distribution of data and increased community participation. Users will be able to manipulate values and play "what if" games while the website will track and record the decisions of individual users. In addition, users will be able to view the decisions of other users. Analysis of responses will assist with evaluating changes in attitude and impacts on negotiations for policy decisions.

• Short Background Paper on Dredged Material Disposal Options in Boston Harbor

• Examples of Data Manipulation Process

Status Report

The GIS application has been finished and tested! During the month of February several presentations / demonstrations of the system were carried out with various groups involved or concern with disposal issues in Boston Harbor in order to get feedback on the system. The results of these groups was presented at the national Fourth Marine & Estuarine Shallow Water Science and Management Conference to be held in Atlantic City, NJ, during the third week of March. See conference abstracts. A master's thesis is currently being written which will document this project. It will be posted on this site when it has been completed around the beginning of May, 1998.

Participant Information

• Judy Pederson, Ph.D. is manager of the Center for Coastal Resources at the MIT Sea Grant College Program with interests in marine ecology and the application of science to policy.

• Scott FitzGerald is currently Vice President at Daylor Consultants

• Emilie Hung completed a Master of Engineering in the MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

Notes

Please contact Scott Fitzgerald at (781)-849-7070 x290 or sfitzgerald@daylor.com if you have any questions about this page or this project. It is part of an ongoing research project and any comments, both positive and negative are appreciated.