RAPID: Assessment and treatment of flood-contaminated water sources and hot-spots of microbial contaminants in post-Harvey Houston

需要进行研究，以了解飓风哈维在休斯顿地区的极端洪灾对化学和微生物污染物的流动产生的短期和长期影响，以及这些影响在受影响地区持续多长时间。在这项研究中，正在整合这些发现，并将其与以前洪水研究的研究结果进行比较，以了解与洪水后疾病传播和极端洪水导致的微生物群落结构变化相关的概括性原则。这项研究的假设是，化学和微生物污染物的显著动员将明显，导致受污染的饮用水水源和沉积物富含粪便指示物和致病微生物。这些结果正被用于为NSF支持的Newt ERC的应急处理技术的设计和部署提供信息，这些技术针对特定的令人担忧的污染物，特别侧重于服务于社会经济弱势群体。这项研究的结果有助于改进流行病学研究，评估洪水动员和沉积的污染物对人类健康的影响。这项研究的社会影响包括提供关于水、土壤和沉积物质量的数据，以便评估由于哈维造成的极端洪水而增强的潜在人类健康和生态系统风险。此外，研究结果增强了我们对洪水条件下疾病传播的微生物生态的了解，并为设计应急响应处理系统提供了参考，这些系统可以部署到受未来极端洪水事件影响的脆弱人群中。这项研究项目涉及研究生和本科生。所有结果都将通过莱斯的Kinder Institute城市数据平台向公众公布，这是一个安全的数据存储库，存储了休斯顿大都市区的可供研究使用的地理编码数据，促进了跨学科研究和社区调查。此外，调查人员正在将调查结果整合到课程中，并开发一项案例研究，其中包括将公开提供的教材。

Research is needed to understand both the shorter- and longer-term impacts of Hurricane Harvey's extreme flooding in the Houston region on the mobilization of chemical and microbial contaminants, as well as how long they persist in impacted areas. In this research, the findings are being integrated and compared to the investigators' findings for previous flood studies in order to understand generalizable principles associated with disease propagation post-flood and microbial community structure changes as a result of extreme flooding. The hypothesis of this study is that significant mobilization of both chemical and microbial contaminants will be evident, resulting in contaminated drinking water sources and sediments enriched in fecal indicators and pathogenic microorganisms. The results are being used to inform the design and deployment of the NSF-supported NEWT ERC's emergency-response treatment technologies that target specific contaminants of concern, with a particular focus on serving socioeconomically vulnerable populations. The results of this research help to improve epidemiologic studies that evaluate the human health impacts of contaminants mobilized and deposited by floodwaters. The societal impacts of this research involve providing data on water, soil and sediment quality that permits assessment of potential human health and ecosystem risks that have been enhanced due to the extreme floods caused by Harvey. Furthermore, the results enhance our understanding of the microbial ecology of disease propagation under flood conditions and inform the design of emergency response treatment systems that can be deployed to vulnerable populations impacted by future extreme flooding events. The research project involves both graduate and undergraduate students. All results are being made available to the public through Rice's Kinder Institute Urban Data Platform, a secure data repository of research-ready geocoded data for the Houston metropolitan area that facilitates cross-disciplinary research and community investigations. Furthermore, the investigators are integrating the findings into courses and developing a case study that includes teaching materials that will be made publicly available.