2018 Hurricane Season: RAPID: Rural residents' self-protections to perceived and actual contamination risk in private drinking wells after Hurricane Florence

飓风佛罗伦萨给北卡罗来纳州带来了8万亿加仑的降雨。杜普林县和桑普森县在猪肉生产（第一和第二）和家禽生产（第二和第三）方面处于全国领先地位，是受影响最严重的地区之一，降雨量超过20英寸，发生了灾难性的洪水和飓风。在这两个农村县，很少有居民能获得公共供水，因此只能依靠地下水井。被淹没的水井，以及该州3000多个露天废物泻湖下游的水井，都面临着大肠菌群和硝酸盐污染的严重风险。这种环境暴露发生的程度取决于居民感知（但不一定确认）这种风险的能力，并采取适当措施保护自己（例如购买瓶装水、沸水、安装水过滤系统）。在暴风雨过后，水井被污染的速度，水井返回饮用水所需的时间，以及房主在此期间采取的保护措施都不得而知。通过利用佛罗伦萨飓风影响地区最近的水质采样，本研究是一个时间敏感和独特的机会，记录实际和感知地下水污染物暴露，测量实际和感知污染随时间的消散，并观察采取的自我保护风险缓解行动。研究小组进行了两轮后续水质采样和居民访谈，目的是测量意外冲击对地下水纯度的感知和实际污染影响以及农村房主采取的自我保护措施。调查结果表明，农村房主是否采取了适当和及时的行动来自我保护，以防止与洪水有关的环境暴露，以及这些房主的自我保护努力是否是地下水污染的社会成本的重要因素。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Hurricane Florence dumped 8 trillion gallons of rain on North Carolina. Duplin and Sampson Counties, which lead the nation in pork production (#1 and #2) and poultry production (#2 and #3), were among the most affected areas receiving 20+ inches of rainfall, catastrophic flooding and hurricane force winds. Few residents in the two rural counties have access to a public water supply and therefore rely on groundwater wells. Inundated wells, and those wells downstream of the state's 3,000+ open waste lagoons, are at severe risk of contamination from coliform bacteria and nitrate. The extent to which this environmental exposure occurs depends on residents' capacities to perceive, but not necessarily confirm, this risk and respond with appropriate efforts to protect themselves (e.g. purchasing bottled water, boiling water, installing water filtration systems). The rate at which wells become polluted following a storm event, the time required for the wells to return potable water and the actions taken by homeowners to protect themselves in the interim all remain unknown.By leveraging recent water quality sampling prior to Hurricane Florence in the storm-affected area, this research is a time-sensitive and unique opportunity to document actual and perceived groundwater contaminant exposures, measure the dissipation of actual and perceived contamination over time and observe self-protective risk mitigation actions taken. The research team conducts two follow-up rounds of water quality sampling and resident interviews with the objective of measuring the perceived and actual contamination impacts of an unexpected shock on groundwater purity and the measures that rural homeowners take to self-protect. The findings inform whether rural homeowners take appropriate and timely action to self-protect against flood-related environmental exposures and whether self-protection efforts by these homeowners is a substantial contributor to the social cost of groundwater contamination.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.