U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY U.S.-MEXCIO BORDER ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH INITIATIVE: BINATIONAL INTEGRATION OF GEOSPATIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL DATA

International borders politically divide the landscape, but rarely represent barriers for environmental issues. The major issues for the U.S.-Mexico border region relate to economics and population growth. These issues present challenges to environmental management and natural resource planning. The primary objective of the U.S. Geological Survey's U.S.-Mexico Border Environmental Health Initiative (http://borderhealth.cr.usgs.gov) is to develop a binationally integrated, Web-based, environmental resource database for display and further analysis within a geographic information system (GIS) framework. The database will eventually include data for the entire U.S.-Mexico border. The GIS, available to the public through an Internet Map Service (IMS), provides the data and tools needed to examine both the occurrence and distribution of disease-causing agents in the environment and their specific pathways of exposure in water, air, biota, and soil. An anticipated outcome of this project is an enhancement of opportunities for collaborative research with public health agencies, biomedical research groups, and other organizations interested in binational issues. Important binationally integrated regional base layers now available through the IMS are geology, land cover, transportation, census, hydrography, and potential sources of contamination.