Executive Summary

The Interstate Technical and Regulatory Council (ITRC) Geostatistics for Remediation Optimization (GRO) team has prepared this guidance document to help environmental practitioners better apply geospatial analyses in environmental projects. The purpose of this document is to explain, educate and train state regulators and other practitioners in understanding and using geospatial analyses to evaluate optimization opportunities at environmental sites.Geospatial analyses are a type of data analysis and in some cases statistical analyses involving spatial or spatial and temporal interpretations of environmental data as well as uncertainty evaluations of those data. Geospatial analyses can be used for optimization at any given project life cycle stage to provide additional confidence in the data set. These methods are especially useful for complex site conditions and geospatial analyses can support a more systematic approach for these sites. The results of geospatial analyses add additional lines of evidence to decision making in optimization opportunities in environmental sites across all project life cycle stages (release detection, site characterization, remediation, monitoring and closure) in soil, groundwater or sediment remediation projects for different sizes and types of sites.

This guidance document introduces readers to how geospatial analyses are used for optimization in project life cycle stages and what site conditions actually warrant the use of geospatial analyses. For example, geospatial analyses for groundwater monitoring optimization typically involve the use of spatial and temporal statistics to systematically estimate correlations and redundancy between sampling locations and events, as well as identify areas or periods of high statistical uncertainty in a groundwater-monitoring network over time.

Proper understanding of the fundamentals of the geospatial analyses, including the steps in geospatial analysis and associated methods, along with the available software for geospatial analyses are provided in this document to explain how to conduct or review the geospatial analyses. This guidance document includes case studies, and a project manager’s quick reference to help avoid misuse or misinterpretation of the geospatial analysis.