TY  - JOUR
AU  - Burger, Joanna
AU  - Gochfeld, Michael
AU  - Brown, Kevin G.
AU  - Ng, Kelly
AU  - Kosson, David S.
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/13
TI  - A Rapid Method of Examining Land Use/Land Cover at Small Industrial Facilities Using Four U.S. Department of Energy Sites as Case Studies
JO  - Recent Progress in Science and Engineering
SP  - 004
VL  - 02
IS  - 01
AB  - This work addresses the application of a method to examine the spatial extent of ecological resources and green space on small Department of Energy (DOE) sites and comparison to ecological resources and green space in the surrounding region. Increasingly, governmental regulators, resource trustees, and the public are concerned that federal facilities are protecting human health and the environment, including ecological resources on their sites. This paper uses the National Land Cover/Land Use Database to examine and compare land use/land cover on four small DOE sites in which environmental remediation is on-going. The main objectives were to: (1) examine the amount and type of ecological land use/land cover present on each site, (2) compare on-site land use/land cover with the surrounding region, and (3) compare land use/land cover among the four DOE sites that are undergoing remediation. The four sites selected are Knolls Atomic Laboratory (New York), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (California), Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Kentucky), and Portsmouth Diffusion Plant (Ohio). This paper provides a method that is useful for land managers and the public to evaluate land use/land cover on small energy sites or other energy facilities, as well as other contaminated industrial sites. All four DOE sites had a higher percentage of land that was developed (built or paved) than the surrounding 10-km and 30-km buffers, and the smaller sites had a higher percentage of developed land than the larger sites. On all sites the industrial developed land was consolidated, and wild land surrounded this developed land. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory had the lowest percentage (only 10%) of any wild ecological land other than developed and agriculture. Both Paducah and Portsmouth had nearly 60% of the sites designated as developed or agriculture. Although Paducah and Portsmouth had about the same percentage of forest (the climax community), Paducah had a significantly higher percentage of forest than the surrounding, largely urban, regions. This paper provides a method of examining wild lands on sites (and off-site) allowing decision makers, regulators, and the public to make more informed decisions about remediation, restoration, and land management. The method reduces overall time and personnel needed to do an initial evaluation of land use/land cover and potential ecological resources of interest.
SN  - 3067-4573
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/rpse.2601004
DO  - 10.21926/rpse.2601004
ID  - Burger2026
ER  -