Using Watershed Boundaries to Map Adverse Health Outcomes: Examples From Nebraska, USA

Authors

Brittany Corley, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Eleanor Rogan, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Donald Coulter, University of Nebraska Medical Center
John Sparks, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Lorena Baccaglini, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Madeline Howell, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Sidra Liaquat, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Rex Commack, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Alan S. Kolok, Idaho Water Resources Research InstituteFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2018

Citation

Environmental Health Insights Volume 12: 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1177/11786302177519.

Comments

© The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License.

Abstract

In 2009, a paper was published suggesting that watersheds provide a geospatial platform for establishing linkages between aquatic contaminants, the health of the environment, and human health. This article is a follow-up to that original article. From an environmental perspective, watersheds segregate landscapes into geospatial units that may be relevant to human health outcomes. From an epidemiologic perspective, the watershed concept places anthropogenic health data into a geospatial framework that has environmental relevance. Research discussed in this article includes information gathered from the literature, as well as recent data collected and analyzed by this research group. It is our contention that the use of watersheds to stratify geospatial information may be both environmentally and epidemiologically valuable.