{"547121":{"#nid":"547121","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Project Will Study How Prescribed Burns Impact Health, Air Quality across the Southeast","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen land managers in Florida or South Carolina or Georgia approve outdoor burns in their states, the resulting smoke doesn\u2019t float to the state line and stop.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYet there\u2019s no unified way to track all of this burning across the Southeast and account for the resulting impacts on air quality and residents\u2019 health. It\u2019s especially an issue for a region where prescribed burns are the top source of fine particulate matter in the air.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Civil and Environmental Engineering researcher\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ce.gatech.edu\/people\/Faculty\/1291\/overview\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ETalat Odman\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;has just\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.firescience.gov\/JFSP_advanced_search_results_detail.cfm?jdbid=%24%26J3%3AV%20%20%20%0A\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Esecured funding to help address the problem\u003C\/a\u003E, bringing together all of the prescribed burn data from a region stretching from Texas to Virginia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith support from the federal\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.firescience.gov\/index.cfm\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EJoint Fire Science Program\u003C\/a\u003E, the U.S. Forest Service, Georgia Tech and North Carolina State University, Odman and his team will marry the burn data with air quality data and cutting-edge computer modeling to understand the full impact of prescribed burns on air pollution and people\u2019s health.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s a system Odman says will help land managers better plan prescribed burns and public health organizations better protect populations vulnerable to particulate matter in the air, such as the elderly, the very young, and people with existing respiratory problems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe want to optimize burns \u2014 which have higher demand than supply \u2014 and air quality at the same time,\u201d Odman said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn Georgia, for example, any open burning requires a permit from the Georgia Forestry Commission, and most burning is banned from May through September in the state\u2019s most-populated areas. The burns are important to maintaining healthy ecosystems and preventing out-of-control wildfires, but Odman said the commission can\u2019t keep up with requests.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s so much demand in Georgia to burn, they cannot respond to all of it. Applications come in [to burn] 2 million acres a year, and last year they issued permits for slightly over 1 million acres,\u201d he said. \u201cSo they could easily double the capacity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re looking at new windows of opportunity. If we had the regional forecast [we\u2019re developing], we could do dynamic management.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ce.gatech.edu\/news\/odman%E2%80%99s-new-project-will-help-us-understand-how-prescribed-burns-impact-health-air-quality?utm_source=Green%20Buzz\u0026amp;utm_medium=website\u0026amp;utm_campaign=prescribedburns\u0022\u003ERead more from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETalat Odman and his team will marry burn data with air quality data and cutting-edge computer modeling to understand the full impact of prescribed burns on air pollution and people\u2019s health.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Talat Odman and his team will marry burn data with air quality data and cutting-edge computer modeling to understand the full impact of prescribed burns on air pollution and people\u2019s health."}],"uid":"27469","created_gmt":"2016-06-23 08:57:18","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:21:57","author":"Kristen Bailey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-06-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-06-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"547111":{"id":"547111","type":"image","title":"Prescribed Burns","body":null,"created":"1466697600","gmt_created":"2016-06-23 16:00:00","changed":"1475895341","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:41","alt":"Prescribed Burns","file":{"fid":"92339","name":"prescribed_burn-firefighter-griffin_ga_talat_odman_h.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/prescribed_burn-firefighter-griffin_ga_talat_odman_h.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/prescribed_burn-firefighter-griffin_ga_talat_odman_h.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":168367,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/prescribed_burn-firefighter-griffin_ga_talat_odman_h.jpg?itok=qV3JWbk2"}}},"media_ids":["547111"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/ce.gatech.edu\/news\/odman%E2%80%99s-new-project-will-help-us-understand-how-prescribed-burns-impact-health-air-quality?utm_campaign=prescribedburns\u0026utm_medium=website\u0026utm_source=Green%20Buzz","title":"Read the Full Story"}],"groups":[{"id":"1253","name":"School of Civil and Envrionmental Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"20861","name":"Burns"},{"id":"4776","name":"civil and environmental engineering"},{"id":"807","name":"environment"},{"id":"115931","name":"fires"},{"id":"479","name":"Green Buzz"},{"id":"166890","name":"sustainability"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:joshua.stewart@ce.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJoshua Stewart\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECivil and Environmental Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}