C2H2 RCN: Water Security and Health of Private Well Users in the Gulf Coast

清洁和可持续的水是健康的必要条件。美国约有4000万人依靠私人井水饮用和家庭用水。通常，这些水不像通过公共供水系统分配的水那样受到监测或处理，这使得私人水井用户暴露于可能引发或加剧健康问题的化学或微生物成分的风险增加。美国各地正在发生的气候变化会对私人水井用户的水质产生负面影响。因此，重要的是要了解气候和水污染因素如何共同作用，导致饮用不安全的井水，并可能造成严重的健康后果。受这种现象影响特别严重的地区是美国墨西哥湾沿岸。为了解决气候/井水安全问题，墨西哥湾沿岸的科学家、卫生/医疗专业人员和其他利益相关者组成了一个广泛的网络，建立了一个私人水井研究协调网络。该网络将整个井水生态系统的研究人员和利益相关者联系起来，使多方协调一致的努力能够确定依赖私人水井饮用水的人需要的问题和可能的解决方案/干预措施。目的是帮助井主和其他人了解饮用受污染水的原因、健康影响和风险，以及如何知道井水是否受到污染。该网络将编制公共教育和外联材料；制定井水缓解和改善策略；并制定方法，提醒水井用户注意由于气候驱动的事件（如盐水入侵、洪水和污水/动物粪便池溢出）导致的水质下降。该网络将建立和传播水质监测方面的最佳做法，以帮助确保私人井水的安全。为了实现这些目标，该网络定期举行虚拟会议，其中包括战略会议、协作讨论和研究议程规划，其中包括地球科学家、卫生/医疗专业人员和社区/公民实体的参与。该网络的重点是可操作的结果，这些结果与高度优先的水井用户需求相一致。更广泛的影响包括改善私人水井的质量和安全，制作教育材料以帮助更好地确保安全的水井饮用水，改善依赖私人井水的人的健康，以及水井所有者可以确定其水是否安全饮用的手段。其他影响包括发展地球科学家和卫生/医疗从业人员之间的联系，以及解决南方一些EPSCoR州（阿拉巴马州、阿肯色州、路易斯安那州和密西西比州）的严重问题。获得安全和可持续的饮用水对人类健康和福祉至关重要。大约15%的美国人依赖私人饮用水井，这些水井不符合批准的饮用水标准，或者需要像市政供水那样进行监测和处理。私人水井用户必须作为自己的自来水公司，承担维护安全供水的责任。气候变化，包括盐水侵入沿海含水层和水井，干旱增加了地下水中有毒金属和/或有机/生物制剂的浓度，洪水可能被下水道流出物或牲畜粪便围堵池中的细菌和微生物污染井水。所有这些都有可能严重影响私人井用户的健康。然而，对于这部分人口来说，如何在定义水安全的时间尺度上了解和监测由气候变化引起的水安全现象的信息有限。私人水井研究协调网络服务于这一迫切需求，并提供协调和全面的地质和医学联合研究工作，以了解导致和可能加剧私人水井饮用水对健康的负面影响的社会、人口和环境因素的相互作用。虽然这一挑战并不局限于美国墨西哥湾沿岸，但该网络的重点是该地区，因为该地区特别容易受到气候变化和人口增长的影响。该网络涉及发展一个持久的、专门的网络，由地球科学家、医学/卫生专业人员、州地质调查、大学、土地授予大学推广机构和其他利益相关者组成。这个网络很广，覆盖了从阿肯色州到墨西哥湾南部各州再到大西洋的地理区域。承诺的网络成员定期会面，围绕墨西哥湾沿岸井水使用者面临的具体危险组成小组，制定由不同实体资助的联合项目，并与社区和民间组织合作，准备教育材料，传播有助于确保用于饮用水的私人井的安全的信息。他们还设计了可以在井水可能受到污染时提醒用户的装置，以帮助防止严重的健康问题。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。

Clean and sustainable water is necessary for good health. About 40 million people in the United States rely on private well water for drinking and household uses. Often, this water is not monitored or treated like water distributed through public supply systems leaving private well users at an increased risk of exposure to chemical or microbial components that can trigger or exacerbate health problems. The changing climate happening across the US can negatively influence water quality for private well users. It is, thus, important to understand how climate and water-contaminating factors work together to result in well water that is unsafe to drink with the potential for serious health consequences. A location particularly hard hit by this phenomenon is the US Gulf Coast. To address the climate/well water safety problem, a broad network of scientists, health/medical professionals, and other stakeholders in the Gulf Coast have created a Private Water Well Research Coordination Network. This network connects researchers and stakeholders across the well water ecosystem to enable a multi-pronged concerted effort to identify problems and possible solutions/interventions needed by those relying on private wells for drinking water. Goals are to help well owners and others understand the causes, health implications, and risks of consuming contaminated water and how to know if well water is compromised. The network will create public education and outreach materials; devise well water mitigation and improvement strategies; and develop means for alerting well users of declines in water quality due to climate-driven events such as salt water intrusion, flooding, and sewage/animal waste pond overflows. The network will create and disseminate best practices in water quality monitoring to help keep private well water safe. To accomplish these goals, the network holds regular virtual meetings that include strategy sessions, collaboration discussions, and planning of research agendas that include participation by geoscientists, health/medical professionals, and community/civic entities. The network is focused on actionable results, ones that align with high priority water-well user needs. Broader impacts include improved quality and safety of private water wells, production of educational materials to help better ensure safe well-derived drinking water, improved health of those relying on private well water, and means by which well owners can determine whether their water is safe to drink. Additional impacts include developing connections between geoscientists and health/medical practitioners, as well as addressing a serious problem in a number of EPSCoR states (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) across the South.Access to safe and sustainable drinking water is paramount for human health and well-being. Approximately 15% of the US population relies on private drinking water wells that do not adhere to approved drinking water standards or require monitoring and treatment that is done for municipal supplies. Private well users must act as their own water utility, assuming the responsibility for maintaining a safe water supply. Climate change, including salt water intrusion into coastal aquifers and water wells, drought that increases the concentration of toxic metals and/or organic/biological agents in groundwater, and flooding which can contaminate well water with bacteria and microbes from sewer outflows or livestock manure containment ponds. All have the potential to seriously impact the health of private well users. However, there is limited information for this segment of the population on how to understand and monitor water safety from phenomena driven by climate change at the timescale on which water safety is defined. The Private Water Well Research Coordination Network serves this pressing need and provides a coordinated and holistic joint geological and medical research effort to understand the interplay of social, demographic, and environmental factors that lead to and can compound negative health effects of drinking water from private wells. While this challenge is not limited to the US Gulf Coast, the focus of this network is on that region due to is particular vulnerability to climate change and growing population. The network involves development of a long lasting, dedicated network of geoscientists, medical/health professionals, state geological surveys, universities, land grant university extension agents, and other stakeholders. The network is broad and covers a geographic region that spans from Arkansas, across the southern Gulf Coast states to the Atlantic Ocean. Committed network members meet regularly, form teams around specific perils to Gulf Coast well water users, develop joint projects for funding by various entities, and work with community and civic organizations to prepare educational materials that disseminate information on practices that can help to ensure safety or private wells used for drinking water. They also devise means that can alert users when their well water could be compromised to help prevent serious health issues.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.