Eugen Taso
Assignment #8
My project scope has not changed dramatically since the last assignment description. However,
with a lot of help and guidance from Barbara (thank you so much), it has been refined and it is
now ready to be written up, executed and put on a poster for all the GIS exhibit visitors to see.
1. Briefly describe your project goals (can be copy and paste from last assignment if it
hasn't changed)
For my final project I will design a potential damage assessment tool for nuclear power plants in
the United States. I will look at a subset of five (5) of the 104 nuclear power plants in the United
States and create scenarios for possible impact of a nuclear disaster.
With Barbara’s guidance, I chose Florida for my target area, which currently has 5 operating
nuclear power plants (as seen above). The goal of the project is to create three buffer zones:
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1-mile radius
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5-mile radius
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10-mile radius
These buffers will be imposed around each of the power plants and assess the possible impact of
a nuclear disaster. While this will not be a damage control tool, it will allow me to find a few key
categories and the possible impact of a nuclear disaster on them:
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Number of people in the buffers (with subsets such as elderly, disabled, children, etc.)
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Travel infrastructure (miles or interstate, miles of state highways, miles of county and
local roads, as well as miles of railroad track within the buffer zones)
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Number of schools, nursing homes, parks, and structures within the buffer zones.
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Number of acres of wetlands/conservation land
This study can be expanded to all the 104 power plants in the country, beyond Florida, utilizing
the same methodology. The hope is to use it to put to rest some of the objections of safety and
impact of nuclear power.
2. Provide a detailed flow chart or a list of steps that you will go through to finish your
project. For this part, you could use the "project steps" list in the GISUE textbook, page
244 as a guide. However you may find a flow chart an easier way to explain, especially if
your project involves different scenarios or the production of a series of maps.
The first step in the process of executing this project is to obtain the data layers I will use in
order to create my maps for analysis. With Barbara’s help, I was able to identify a great source
for the location of nuclear power plants in the US: the Environmental Protection Agency’s
eGRID dataset. The 2004 dataset is available on the S: drive in the GIS lab. However, I was able
to download the 2007 dataset and am currently working on converting it to a shape file in order
to utilize it in ArcMap.
I chose Florida due to the availability of the data from the Florida Geographic Data Library
(http://www.fgdl.org/download/index.html.) The list is comprehensive, and has all the
information I need in order to be able to conduct my buffer analysis. I have downloaded the
following data to my H drive:
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Administrative and Political Boundaries
Business and Economic
Imagery and Base Maps
Transportation Networks
Utility Networks
In addition, I will use the data available on the M: drive for some general US data for locating
Florida on a map. I may also use some of the 2000 US census data for my project, although it is
also available on the Florida Geographic Data Library website.
Once I have all the data downloaded, I will start adding the layers into ArcMap.
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USA base map
Florida base map
FL nuclear power plants layer
Roads, Railroads
Schools, Nursing homes layer
Block Groups from US Census layer
Wetlands and conservation land Layer
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Once I have all my layers in, I will need to:
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Change the coordinate system for the power plants to match the FL coordinate system
(similar to the Newton example done in class)
Select by attribute from the eGRID shape file the nuclear power plants for the analysis
layer ("PLPRMFL" = 'NUC'). Then export the data into a new layer
Use the Spatial Analyst tool to show the buffer zones as a raster (since I will be working
with vector data for this project, this step is just to play with the tools I learned this
semester)
Use the Buffer tool in the Proximity Section of the Analysis Tools in order to create my
buffers around the power plants. This will create three new layers with the buffers
Use the intersect tool to overlay the layers of interest, one at a time, to my buffer zones
Summarize data by the name of the power plant to get the statistics needed in the results
NOTE: I will not clip the buffers for different nuclear power plants where they intersect. While
this may be a logical thing to do in order to prevent double counting, it is not the right approach
here due to the fact that not all power plants may have problems at the same time (unless we’re
in the TV series “24”). Therefore, the buffers may intersect, but the analysis will be done for
each one in parallel. Alternatively, I could create a different layer for each power plant and
overlay all of them on the base map while doing the analysis.
While this process may be long and tedious, once I have the right layers in there and the buffers
drawn out correctly, I believe I will be able to accurately follow the steps described in order to
reach my results.
The output of the study will be in two parts:
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Maps of Florida with the power plants and buffer zones represented
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Tables with summaries of the different impact categories (for example, here is one for the
Census population impact):
1-Mile Buffer
5-Mile Buffer
10-Mile Buffer
Entire Buffer Area
Mean pop/sq mile
>65 Population
<18 Population
Median Income
Median House Price
NOTE: I was also inspired in this project design by the GDAE study on climate change in
Florida, available at http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/Florida_lr.pdf. In this study, the
researchers look at the impacts of possible climate change conditions on existing infrastructure,
population and development of the state. While it does not address nuclear power plants, the
analysis is in-depth and very complete and provides a great starting point for my project.
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