Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center on Sanitation and Water Infrastructure of the Future for Marginalized Communities (SWIFt-MC)

美国的边缘社区（例如，大多数黑人和西班牙裔城市郊区（城郊）社区和经济和技术资源水平较低的较小农村城市）不太可能获得关键的环境卫生基础设施，如集中饮用水或污水管道。他们还更多地依赖于小型和现场系统，很少有机会获得技术进步。多项研究表明，目前的现场系统比受监管的社区供水和下水道服务构成更高的健康风险。边缘化社区还首当其冲地受到生态栖息地变化和自然灾害的影响，缺乏资金和地方资源来接受和适应技术创新。通过关注边缘社区，未来边缘社区卫生和供水基础设施融合工程研究中心（SWIFt-MC）将开启创新，为6000万依赖分散式现场卫生设施的美国公民、8%的美国人口提供小型饮用水系统和私人水井服务，以及数十亿无法获得可接受的水和卫生设施的新兴市场人口提供服务。拟议的工程研究中心（ERC） SWlFt-MC将采用融合研究方法，将导致：1)用于小型和现场供水和废水/卫生系统的新颖和改进的环境适应技术，2)用于量化化学和微生物污染物的新传感器和技术，3)加深我们对暴露的理解的基于系统的新模型和框架，以及4)结合社会，经济和行为因素的新解决方案和干预措施。SWIFt-MC将通过推进对基础科学、环境科学和公共卫生科学的基本理解，为边缘化社区开发和测试公共卫生基础设施技术和解决方案，引领具有变革性的研究和教育。这种理解将跨越并推动水和卫生领域的物理、化学、生物、社会和计算科学的界限。SWIFt-MC还将促进对工程教育的重新思考。通过定义工程进步的受益者，SWIFt-MC将使代表性不足的K-12、本科生和研究生能够解决影响弱势群体的问题，并强调社区参与和系统和长期思考。SWIFt-MC将导致具有转化意义的研究、教育和推广，因为研究结果将影响实践和解决方案，这些实践和解决方案将在美国和世界各地的几个边缘化社区进行测试和评估。SWIFt-MC吗?美国的愿景是在未来十年内改变现有的公共卫生基础设施，将20世纪70年代的小型和现场系统推进到21世纪的技术。这项计划拨款将通过面对面的讨论和研讨会召集必要的利益相关者和思想领袖，围绕这一集体愿景，以系统的创造性思维（例如，TRIZ）和团队科学为特色。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。

Marginalized communities in the US (e.g., majority black and Hispanic urban-outskirt (peri-urban) communities and smaller rural municipalities with low levels of economic and technical resources) are less likely to have access to critical environmental health infrastructure, such as centralized drinking water or sewer lines. They also rely more on small and onsite systems and have less access to technological advances. Multiple studies show that current onsite systems pose higher health risks than regulated community water and sewer services. Marginalized communities also bear the brunt of ecological habitat shifts and natural disasters and lack financial and local resources to embrace and adapt technological innovations. By focusing on marginalized communities, the Convergent Engineering Research Center for Sanitation and Water Infrastructure of the Future for Marginalized Communities (SWIFt-MC) will unlock innovations that can serve the 60 million US citizens that rely on decentralized onsite sanitation, the 8% of the US population served by small drinking water systems and private wells, and the billions of people in emerging markets without access to acceptable water and sanitation.The proposed Engineering Research Center (ERC) SWlFt-MC will embrace a convergent research approach that will lead to: 1) novel and improved context-adapted technologies for small and on-site water and wastewater/sanitation systems, 2) new sensors and techniques for quantifying chemical and microbial contaminants, 3) new systems- based models and frameworks that deepen our understanding of exposures, and 4) new solutions and interventions that incorporate social, economic, and behavioral factors. SWIFt-MC will lead to research and education that is transformative through advancing fundamental understanding of basic sciences, environmental sciences, and public health sciences to develop and test public health infrastructure technologies and solutions for marginalized communities. This understanding will cut across and push the boundaries of physical, chemical, biological, social, and computational sciences in the area water and sanitation. SWIFt-MC will also catalyze the re-thinking of engineering education. By defining the beneficiaries of engineering advances, SWIFt-MC will empower underrepresented K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students to address problems affecting the disadvantaged, and emphasize community engagement and systems- and long-term thinking. SWIFt-MC will lead to research, education, and outreach that is translational, as the findings will impact practices and solutions that will be tested and evaluated in several marginalized communities in the US and around the world. SWIFt-MC?s vision is to change the current public health infrastructure within the next ten years, advancing small and on-site systems from the 1970s to 21st century technology. This planning grant will convene the necessary stakeholders and thought-leaders around this collective vision through face-to-face discussions and workshops that feature Systematic Inventive Thinking (e.g., TRIZ) and the science of team science.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.