PNNL

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) manages one of the largest groundwater cleanup efforts in the world in terms of the number of plumes, diversity of contaminants, volume of affected groundwater, and diversity of hydrogeologic settings. The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) has been collecting site-specific data on plume sizes, remedial approaches, exit strategies, long-term stewardship requirements, and regulatory drivers at all DOE sites, and summarizing them in a single document to communicate high-level information on groundwater contamination and cleanup status to DOE managers. Recently, EM has sponsored an effort to transfer the document-based information to an online resource for collating information on groundwater plumes that is easily accessible by interested parties. Specifically, Web GIS story maps have been developed to provide a robust geospatial visualization of plumes at DOE sites using an intuitive interface that allows users to explore plume maps, explanatory text, photographs, and video provided within the story maps. This collection of story maps is called ATLAS (Assembly of Tools for Learning Actions and Status), and not only communicates groundwater plume data for each individual site, but also summarizes pertinent metrics across all EM sites. With ATLAS, sites with similar settings, contamination, or remedial approaches can be easily identified, facilitating effective communication among DOE sites and sharing of individual successes and lessons learned.