In addition to satellite maps for the Norco area (low-res | hi-res), we present an example of emissions data plotted for the years 1987 to 2000 for five of the largest facilities in Norco as listed by the Toxics Release Inventory (see description below). These five facilities include four chemical facilities — Cypress Polypropylene Plant, Shell Oil Co., Norco Chemical Plant — West, Union Carbide Corp., Taft/Star Complex, Witco Corp., Polymer Additives Div., and one refinery — Shell Norco Refining Co., East.

To complement the broadcast of "Fenceline" we present the Norco information (low-res | hi-res) within the context of the entire Mississippi River Industrial Corridor (MRIC) (low-res | hi-res). The site design includes a series of clickable maps at different scales to show different levels of detail starting with the largest maps and lowest detail in the following order:

1. Regional-Scale (Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi)
View Map: low-res | hi-res

2. MRIC-Scale (all parishes together, within MRIC)
View Map: low-res | hi-res

3. Parish-Scale (each parish individually, within MRIC)
View Map: low-res | hi-res

4. City-Scale (for Norco only)
View Map: low-res | hi-res

These maps show the locations of the largest chemical and refinery facilities.

Description & Navigation of Site

In the first paragraph a series of hyperlinks are marked to provide you with direct access to the data that emphasize information for Norco, Louisiana in St. Charles Parish. The site is also designed to provide the regional context for the Norco maps and emissions data, with similar information provided for each parish within the MRIC. The graphs of the industrial emissions data for the large facilities can be found on the parish-scale map page (low-res | hi-res).

About the Data

Brief descriptions of the data sources for each layer are presented in the following list. The web addresses for sites from which we accessed the data and information on the downloadable files for this site are shown below. Additional information about our research on large rivers under the direction of Dr. Leal A.K. Mertes at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) — Department of Geography and contributors (personnel and funding sources) follows.

The locations and emissions data for the industrial facilities are based on data retrieved from the Right-to-Know online database for Toxics Release Information (TRI). We emphasized mapping and labeling the facilities named in the Louisiana TRI Report for 1997 (LA TRI 1997), because this was the most complete synthesis of information on large facilities that we could find. Other facilities from the TRI report are marked on the maps, but are not labeled. We provide downloadable files of the pertinent section of the LA TRI 1997 report and the spreadsheets used to make the emissions graphs (see below). The maps can be directly saved or printed off the web using your browser save and print functions.

Map Layers

1. Regional-Scale: MODIS True-Color Mosaic
2. MRIC-Scale: all parishes: Landsat 7 ETM Mosaic (542 Band Combination)
3. Parish-Scale: Digital Orthophoto Quadrangle Mosaic (As another example, East Baton Rouge)
4. City-Scale: Digital Orthophoto Quadrangle Mosaic (NORCO only)

Downloadable Databases for this Site

Industrial Emissions Data from RTK — TRI database — M.S. Excel files (ZIP file)

Louisiana Toxics Release Inventory Report 1997 — Chapter 4: The Mississippi River Industrial Corridor — ( Download PDF)

Data Sources

Toxics Release Inventory Data (TRI) — The Right-to-Know Network

MODIS Images — NASA Visible Earth — EOS Data Gateway

DEM Data — EOS Data Gateway

Landsat Images — USGS EarthExplorer

Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quadrangles — Atlas: The Louisiana Statewide GIS

State/County GIS Datasets — National Atlas of the United States

City GIS Data — ESRI — USA Dataset — Distributed with ESRI GIS (ARC) Software

Copyright

All of the new material and maps are held under copyright with the University of California Regents for free distribution for non-commercial use. The proper reference for the material is: Mertes, L.A.K., Celay, A., and Edgar, G., 2002, Mississippi River Industrial Corridor (MRIC): Satellite Maps and Emissions Data for Large Chemical and Refinery Facilities in Norco, Louisiana.

Research on Large Rivers at UCSB Geography

In the past decade substantial advances have been made in the study of large rivers using satellite images. In order to facilitate the search for appropriate images for use in study of large rivers we have curated a web site (www.geog.ucsb.edu/~rivers) that includes satellite images for many of the large rivers of the world and data products associated with these images.

One of the most effective new tools that has been developed to better understand how large rivers work is a statistical tool known as 'spectral mixture analysis' that makes it possible to calculate water quality in the form of surface sediment concentration from satellite images. We show an example of this type of calculation for the lower Mississippi River where we have calculated sediment concentration from two MODIS images for March 21-22, 2002, and have overlaid this map of measured sediment concentrations (low-res | hi-res) onto a shaded relief map. You can click on the black box on this regional map to zoom into a sediment concentration map for March 2001 for the Norco, LA area (low-res | hi-res). In the Norco area the concentrations range from about 40 milligrams per liter (mg/L) to 120 mg/L (from green to orange). The variability in concentrations can be related to the amount of water flowing in the river and the location on the river.

Personnel contributing to the development of this site: Dr. Leal A.K. Mertes, Greg Edgar, Alice Celay, Nina Kilham, and James Wells.

Funding for development of these Web-based materials provided to Dr. L. Mertes from the California Space Institute, NASA, P.O.V., and UCSB.

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