Excerpt from "Tapping communities for water research," posted on NSF News, March 22, 2018.
Access to safe drinking water is one of the greatest achievements in human history, largely thanks to science and engineering research. Yet the safety of the United States' drinking water system faces increasing risks from contaminants, drought and other issues, threatening vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly.
For the last two years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided funding to enable communities across the country to take a closer look at the quality of their own water systems, from Des Moines, Iowa, to Flint, Michigan, and from the Mississippi Water Basin to Maine's estuaries.
For World Water Day, NSF asked these citizen scientists and engineers to explain what excites them about their projects, what they learned, and in what directions they see solutions to water flowing. Below are excerpts from their responses, in their own words.
Alan S. Kolok of the University of Idaho and Shannon Bartelt-Hunt and Ann Fruhling of the University of Nebraska at Omaha studied water quality in the Mississippi River Basin.
A concerned populace in possession of cellphones and easy-to-use-and-interpret data collection devices is about to revolutionize water resource research.
A trained and equipped collection of citizen scientists can fill gaps where data currently does not exist. While this can be important in developed countries, such as those found in North America or Western Europe, it may be more important in developing nations, where the scientific infrastructure to conduct water quality analysis may be minimal or altogether lacking.
Our research provides solid evidence that crowdsourced science can be a major component of a sustainability program relative to water resources in developing countries. And to use this knowledge to ensure clean water for future generations.
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