Research is needed to understand both the shorter- and longer-term impacts of Hurricane Harvey's extreme flooding in the Houston region on the mobilization of chemical and microbial contaminants, as well as how long they persist in impacted areas. In this research, the findings are being integrated and compared to the investigators' findings for previous flood studies in order to understand generalizable principles associated with disease propagation post-flood and microbial community structure changes as a result of extreme flooding. The hypothesis of this study is that significant mobilization of both chemical and microbial contaminants will be evident, resulting in contaminated drinking water sources and sediments enriched in fecal indicators and pathogenic microorganisms. The results are being used to inform the design and deployment of the NSF-supported NEWT ERC's emergency-response treatment technologies that target specific contaminants of concern, with a particular focus on serving socioeconomically vulnerable populations. The results of this research help to improve epidemiologic studies that evaluate the human health impacts of contaminants mobilized and deposited by floodwaters.
The societal impacts of this research involve providing data on water, soil and sediment quality that permits assessment of potential human health and ecosystem risks that have been enhanced due to the extreme floods caused by Harvey. Furthermore, the results enhance our understanding of the microbial ecology of disease propagation under flood conditions and inform the design of emergency response treatment systems that can be deployed to vulnerable populations impacted by future extreme flooding events. The research project involves both graduate and undergraduate students. All results are being made available to the public through Rice's Kinder Institute Urban Data Platform, a secure data repository of research-ready geocoded data for the Houston metropolitan area that facilitates cross-disciplinary research and community investigations. Furthermore, the investigators are integrating the findings into courses and developing a case study that includes teaching materials that will be made publicly available.
