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Project Objectives

International borders politically divide the landscape but rarely represent barriers for environmental issues. The major issues surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border involve economics and population growth that present challenges to environmental management and natural resource planning. To monitor trends and analyze the stresses to the environment, binationally integrated baseline datasets that portray the status of the landscape are needed. Geographic data are readily available for both countries, but the data lack a structured framework and compatibility in terms of temporal and positional scale and consistent quality.

The primary objective of this project is to develop an integrated, Web-based, environmental resource database for display and further analysis within a geographic information system (GIS) framework. This information system, available to the public through the Internet Mapping 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 exposure pathways in water, air, biota, rock, and soil. A desired outcome of this project will be an enhancement of opportunities for collaborative research with public health agencies and biomedical researchers as a result of the identification of information gaps.

Rapid population growth and consequent economic development and land use changes are pushing the limits of environmental sustainability and quality. Infrastructure development has lagged behind the rapid growth of the region, resulting in a shortage of water for municipal, agricultural, and industrial uses. These stressors threaten the quality of life in the region and raise concerns about the interdependence of environmental quality and human health.

To allow for continued economic growth while protecting the area's natural resources and fostering a high quality of life, the United States and Mexico need an improved understanding of the threats posed by these anthropogenic changes.

Issues of particular concern include

1. contaminants in ground water, surface water, rock, soil, and biota from agricultural, municipal, and industrial activities;
2. airborne pollutants from fossil-fuel combustion and other activities;
3. contaminants from past and present mining activities and mineral deposits;
4. pathogens, pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other contaminants released in treated and untreated human and animal wastewaters.

Resource managers and public health officials need ready access to accurate, impartial, scientific information to strike a balance among human needs for resource utilization, environmental quality, and human health.