A geoprocessing model for the selection of populations most affected by diffuse industrial contamination: the case of oil refinery plants.

INTRODUCTION: A method to select populations living in areas affected by diffuse environmental contamination is presented, with particular regard to oil refineries, in the Italian context. The reasons to use municipality instead of census tract populations for environment and health small-area studies of contaminated sites are discussed.
METHODS: Populations most affected by diffuse environmental contamination are identified through a geoprocessing model. Data from the national census 2001 were used to estimate census tract level populations. A geodatabase was developed using the municipality and census tract layers provided by the Italian National Bureau of Statistics (ISTAT). The orthophotos of the Italian territory - year 2006 - available on the geographic information systems (GIS) of the National Cartographic Portal, were considered. The area within 2 km from the plant border was used as an operational definition to identify the area at major contamination.
RESULTS: The geoprocessing model architecture is presented. The results of its application to the selection of municipality populations in a case study are shown.
CONCLUSIONS: The application of the proposed geoprocessing model, the availability of long time series of mortality and morbidity data, and a quali-quantitative estimate of contamination over time, could allow an appraisal of the health status of populations affected by oil refinery emissions.