IRES Track 1: Exploring Surface Water Contamination and Links to Disease Risk in Costa Rica

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Costa Rica, a Central American country world-renowned for its biodiversity and unique ecology, is very active toward conservation but with growing concerns about water health. The entire country is sectioned into Conservation Units called “Biological Corridors” serving to protect and conserve sensitive areas. But while these corridors protect wildlife and forest communities, they also serve as water purifiers labeled “Ecological Services” for the towns and cities in these corridors. Drinking water is extracted directly from wells or springs while sanitation occurs in the very same groundwater discharged from septic tanks. This creates water stress as concerns over changing precipitation patterns emerge, agricultural use intensifies, conservation work continues and disease risk is addressed. These concerns have world-wide implications as rural communities in the United States battle similar problems balancing water use with conservation and associated disease risk in our population.The interaction between personal (septic systems), with municipal sanitation (waste water treatment plants) and pollution of surface waters, groundwater and aquifers, is a poorly understood yet highly relevant area of study in Costa Rica because there is growing concern over high incidence of disease, such as peptic ulcers, gastritis, and stomach cancers potentially attributable to poor drinking water conditions. Through coordinated and integrated student research projects, linkages between surface waters, groundwater and sanitation are explored. The student research will more clearly link incidence of illness to water sources, concerning pollutants and will begin to generate new, innovative methods for understanding and predicting the condition of underwater drinking supplies. Not only will this research address a critical knowledge gap for communities where surface water conditions present health risk, it will provide outstanding opportunities for professional development of both undergraduate and graduate students pursuing careers in the environmental health and sciences field.This highly coordinated student work will support the need to integrate student experience among very diverse, underrepresented groups of students with international collaborators solving needed community issues. This work further integrates diverse scientific expertise, international competencies, and diversity among future U.S. water quality professionals through a concerted effort to recruit and train undergraduate and graduate students, including those from underrepresented groups, and foster research collaboration in an international setting. It expands applicable water quality partnership work in Costa Rica and provides critical decision-making capacity for local water professionals. This project is funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE).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.