RAPID: Molecular and Metagenomic Understanding of Coastal Water Quality and Health Risks After Hurricane Lane

这是一个RAPID研究项目，涉及2018年8月袭击夏威夷群岛的飓风莱恩造成的微生物污染的易腐数据。由于飓风莱恩的影响，夏威夷岛上的希洛市经历了有记录以来最潮湿的三天，降雨量为31.85英寸，而夏威夷山景城的降雨量则达到了惊人的52.02英寸。这些席卷夏威夷群岛的暴雨导致了严重的洪水，并在老化的下水道基础设施不堪重负的社区造成了未经处理的卫生污水泄漏。由于受风暴影响的沿海水域的污染源多种多样，传统的基于粪便指示菌（FIB）的水质监测方法不足以评估人类健康风险。该项目旨在通过使用分子和宏基因组工具对沿海水体微生物进行直接病原体检测、微生物来源跟踪和评估，从而更全面地了解风险。了解沿海水质如何受到不同来源的风暴相关污染物的影响以及大风暴后沿海水质如何恢复是很重要的。分子和宏基因组工具的使用有望提供比传统的基于fib的方法更全面的理解。这项研究还将产生受这种重大风暴影响的水迫切需要的水微生物质量数据，这可以改善未来对类似事件的准备和恢复工作。已经进行了初步取样工作，并收集了独特和珍贵的水样，这些水样对于回答这些重要的科学问题至关重要。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。

This is a RAPID research project involving perishable data on microbial contamination as a consequence of Hurricane Lane, which hit the Hawaii islands during August 2018. As a consequence of Hurricane Lane, the City of Hilo on the Island of Hawaii experienced its wettest three-day period on record with 31.85 inches of precipitation, while a staggering 52.02 inches of rainfall occurred in Mountain View, Hawaii. These torrential rains throughout the Hawaii islands resulted in significant flooding and caused raw sanitary sewage spills in communities where aging sewer infrastructures were overwhelmed. Because of the diverse pollutant sources in storm-impacted coastal water, the conventional fecal indicator bacteria (FIB)-based water quality monitoring approach alone is inadequate for assessing human health risks. This project aims to achieve more comprehensive understanding of risks by using use molecular and metagenomic tools for direct pathogen detection, microbial source tracking, and assessment of coastal water microorganisms. It is important to understand how coastal water quality is impacted by the different sources of storm-related pollutants and how the coastal water quality recovers after major storms. The use of molecular and metagenomic tools is expected to provide a more comprehensive understanding than the traditional FIB-based approaches. This study will also generate water microbiology quality data that are urgently needed for such major storm-impacted water, which could improve future preparation and recovery efforts for similar events. Preliminary sampling efforts have been conducted and have collected unique and precious water samples that are essential for answering these important scientific questions.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.