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。杜普林和桑普森县在猪肉生产（#1和#2）和家禽生产（#2和#3）方面领先全国，是受影响最严重的地区之一，降雨量超过20英寸，灾难性洪水和飓风风力。这两个农村县的居民很少有机会获得公共供水，因此依赖地下威尔斯井。被淹没的威尔斯井，以及该州3,000多个开放式废物泻湖下游的威尔斯井，面临着大肠菌群和硝酸盐污染的严重风险。这种环境暴露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、开水、安装水过滤系统）。风暴事件后威尔斯井被污染的速度、威尔斯井返回饮用水所需的时间以及房主在此期间采取的保护自己的行动都仍然未知。通过利用受风暴影响地区飓风佛罗伦萨之前最近的水质采样，这项研究是一个时间敏感和独特的机会，可以记录实际和感知的地下水污染物暴露，测量实际和感知污染随时间的消散情况，并观察所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。调查结果告知农村房主是否采取适当和及时的行动，以自我保护免受洪水相关的环境风险，以及这些房主的自我保护工作是否是地下水污染的社会成本的重要贡献者。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

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.