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Benefits of GEOSS in Rhode Island

In Rhode Island, Earth Observations will:

Allow Rhode Island to monitor and evaluate the safety of its recreational waters with greater certainty through the identification of conditions that cause sickness.

Travel and tourism is the Nation's largest employer and second largest contributor to the GDP, generating over $700 billion annually. Beaches are the leading tourist destination, with coastal states earning 85 percent of all U.S. tourism revenues. Approximately 180 million people vacation and recreate along U.S. coasts every year.1

Help expand the ability to track and model natural disasters (such as hurricanes and storms). Through Earth observations, Rhode Island can have near real-time monitoring that will improve storm and hurricane forecasts and help to dramatically reduce the cost of damage to property and human life.

Average annual damage from tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods is $11.4 billion nationally, of which:

Improve sustainable agriculture by monitoring soil moisture content, rates of fertilizer application, field fertility, and plant diseases.

Enable state and local air quality forecasters to issue to the public more timely, accurate, and site-specific warnings regarding bad air quality so that people (especially the sensitive population) may take prudent actions to protect their health. By 2005, ozone forecasts will be made available along the entire East Coast and by 2009, particulate matter forecasts will be made available.

It is estimated that 31 million Americans including 9 million children have asthma. Ground level ozone in the summer time is the chief cause for poor air quality warnings and human exposure to ozone is known to aggravate asthma. Another component of air, airborne particulate matter, is associated with increased hospital admissions and emergency room visits for people with heart and lung disease and increased work and school absences.3

Children with asthma miss more than 14 million school days annually and asthma accounts for an estimated 14.5 million lost work days per year.4

In 2000, the 15 states with the highest rates of current asthma prevalence were Arizona, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.5

Provide more accurate weather forecasting and save Rhode Island millions of dollars in heating and cooling costs.

The value of understanding the interrelationships between weather variables and electric load can save a small utility at least $0.5 M annually through improved temperature forecasts.6

Aid in the monitoring local groundwater supplies and surrounding facilities to protect groundwater resources.

34% of Rhode Island's population relies on groundwater for its drinking water supply and 60% of the public water suppliers in Rhode Island provide groundwater.7

Track effects of global change. Integration of international data sets into Earth observations will help us detect signs of global warming, including sea level rise and coastal degradation.

Weather and climate sensitive industries, both directly and indirectly, account for about one-third of the Nations' GDP, or $3 trillion, ranging from finance, insurance, and real estate to services, retail and wholesale trade and manufacturing.8

Track water temperatures, harmful algal blooms, invasive species, and other environmental factors affecting the Rhode Island's coastal areas.

Economic impact of harmful algal blooms in United States average annually $49 million but individual outbreaks can cause economic damage that exceeds the annual average.9

Protect watersheds through water quality monitoring and mapping of land cover changes; thereby, protecting sources of water for agriculture, forestry, and human uses.

Economic activity in coastal regions is very large. In the U.S., seventy-five percent of the nation's Gross States' Products came from the coastal states in 2000. Almost half of the national economy came from the coastal watershed counties, and more than one-third came from those counties in which states operate their Coastal Zone Management programs. The near shore area, which is four percent of the nation's land, produces more than 11 percent of the nation's economic output.10

Track and forecast West Nile virus and Lyme disease outbreaks through geographic analyses of people and places affected.

1 Leeworthy, Vernon R., Preliminary Estimates from Versions 1-6:Coastal Recreation Participation, National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE) 2000, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Oceans and Coasts, Special Projects Office. Website: http://marineeconomics.noaa.gov.

2 National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Environmental and Societal Impacts Group, and the Atmospheric Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society, 2001, Extreme Weather Sourcebook 2001: Economic and Other Societal Impacts Related to Hurricanes, Floods, Tornadoes, Lightning, and Other U.S. Weather Phenomena, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo. Available only online at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/sourcebook/data.html

3 U.S. Centers for Disease Control

4 CDC. Surveillance for asthma: United States, 1980-1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2002;51(SS01):1-13

5 CDC. Self-reported asthma prevalence among adults: United States, 2000. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. August 17, 2001;50(32):682-686.

6 Tribble, A.N., 2003: The relationship between weather variables and electricity demand to improve short-term load forecasting. Ph. D. dissertation, School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, 221 pp., from Building The National Cooperative Mesonet: Program Development Plan For COOP Modernization dated October 2003.

7 National Ground Water Association, 2003.

8 Dutton, John A., Opportunities and priorities in a new era for weather and climate services, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, September 2002, volume 83, no. 9, pp 1303-1311.

9 Hoagland, D.M. Anderson, Y. Kaoru and A.W. White. August 2002. The economic effects of harmful algal blooms in the United States: estimates, assessment issues, and information needs. Estuaries 25 (4b): 819- 837.

10 National Ocean Economics Project, www.oceaneconomics.org.

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