Over 43 million people in the United States rely on private drinking water supplies for domestic purposes, yet 20% of water wells are potentially contaminated in some form. In Pennsylvania, 2-3 million rural residents use private water supplies for domestic purposes, yet Pennsylvania has no state-wide well drilling standards or water quality testing requirements for private water sources. The lack of implemented standards and monitoring hides potential water supply and quality issues and may affect water trust, health, and overall water insecurity. Therefore, we conducted two interlinked systematic reviews to understand (1) social perspectives around water insecurity among private water supply users in Pennsylvania and (2) associations between private water sources and health outcomes. Using Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, ProQuest, Compendex, and Google Scholar, we identified 10 articles (n1) for the first review and 15 for the second (n2). Results indicated water insecurity relates to perceived and measured water quality problems. Common sources of water quality issues were chemical contamination (n1 = 5, n2 = 8), biological contamination (n1 = 3, n2 = 7), and proximity to shale gas drilling (n1 = 6, n2 = 4). Four articles measured health effects including thyroid health, risk for Parkinson's disease, and effects related to TCE/PCB contamination and proximity to shale gas drilling, while others discussed poor water quality potentially causing gastrointestinal illnesses. These reviews indicate opportunities for increased water testing for private water users and education for water quality health risks. Emerging literature emphasizes a surge of research interest in examining the social perceptions and health effects of water in Pennsylvania. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Water, Health, and SanitationHuman Water > Water GovernanceScience of Water > Water Quality.
Water system centralization and decentralization have variously been promoted as key to achieving household water security and Sustainable Development Goal 6.1. We argue that the lack of specificity with which scholars and practitioners use the terms centralization and decentralization limits our understanding of different water system configurations and their impacts. In this Primer, we provide a framework for thinking about levels of (de)centralization across three linked system dimensions: infrastructure, governance, and operations and maintenance. We encourage those analyzing water systems to characterize (de)centralization with respect to these multiple dimensions, as well as the system's broader political-economic and hydro-climatic contexts. Emphasizing the importance of delineating the scale of analysis, we highlight distinct system configurations and the prevalence of hybridity. Increased specificity about dimensions and scale can clarify how the character of, or changes to, a given system impact users, which is critical to assessing their implications for water security, sustainability, and equity. We conclude with recommendations for future research to analyze the opportunities and challenges associated with different water system configurations. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance.
United States (US) drinking water quality is federally regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) with the goal of ensuring clean, safe drinking water for the entire population. However, siting of pollution point sources in historically redlined communities with lower socioeconomic status and higher proportions of people of color adversely affects drinking water quality. Prior studies show higher concentrations of a suite of contaminants in small PWS, PWS in rural areas, and PWS serving greater proportions of people of color. Drinking water crises in Flint, Michigan (ca. 2014) and Jackson, Mississippi (ca. 2022) are visible examples of a chronic and widespread pattern of elevated exposures in certain communities. Comprehensive state monitoring data produced as part of compliance with the SDWA are presently not accessible to the public. Further, metadata on water treatment technology and sociodemographic composition of customers served are lacking. Here we argue that improving data transparency is essential for spearheading action to address exposure disparities. We propose the creation of a unified national public database on water quality, treatment technology, and customer metadata with accompanying visualizations for the public that leverage new AI tools. Public action to address exposure disparities gained momentum over the last 30 years but was halted abruptly in 2025. Therefore, new partnerships are urgently needed to continue the pursuit of environmental justice. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation Science of Water > Water Quality
Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms (HCBs) threaten ecological and human health, and their incidence and magnitude appear to be rising globally. However, a lack of guidance exists on how to choose the best HCB control and mitigation strategy for different types of water bodies. The portfolio of available in situ control techniques is diverse, ranging from experimental to well established, with complicated and poorly-documented records of effectiveness across different settings and a range of unintended ecological consequences. We introduce a decision tree that synthesizes current science and practitioner experience in a framework that can be used to examine conditions under which HCB control techniques are likely to be appropriate and most effective. The factors that establish branching and the classification of techniques within the decision tree were based on the review of peer-reviewed and gray literature, and on responses to a national survey. Key factors influencing the feasibility and effectiveness of HCB control include whether nutrient loads are sourced externally or internally, the size of the treatment area, and the vulnerability of and regulations governing the receiving water body. Survey results point to important regional differences in the application of HCB control techniques, whereas demonstration of the decision tree with real-world case studies highlights some of the practical issues managers face in making decisions about treatment techniques. Supporting Information provides a comprehensive review of current science, appropriate use, and costs for individual techniques.
Centralized water infrastructure has, over the last century, brought safe and reliable drinking water to much of the world. But climate change, combined with aging and underfunding, is increasingly testing the limits of-and reversing gains made by-these large-scale water systems. To address these growing strains and gaps, we must assess and advance alternatives to centralized water provision and sanitation. The water literature is rife with examples of systems that are neither centralized nor networked, but still meet water needs of local communities in important ways, including: informal and hybrid water systems, decentralized water provision, community-based water management, small drinking water systems, point-of-use treatment, small-scale water vendors, and packaged water. Our work builds on these literatures by proposing a convergence approach that can integrate and explore the benefits and challenges of modular, adaptive, and decentralized ("MAD") water provision and sanitation, often foregrounding important advances in engineering technology. We further provide frameworks to evaluate justice, economic feasibility, governance, human health, and environmental sustainability as key parameters of MAD water system performance.
Flint, Michigan reignited the public discourse surrounding lead contamination in drinking water with Newark, New Jersey recently experiencing its own lead-in-water crisis. Following Flint's experience, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed changes to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR), but these changes may not produce better detection of contamination. LCR testing requirements were evaluated for their ability to predict or identify problems from the recent (2015-2019) Newark lead exceedance data. LCR compliance and water quality data were obtained from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) website. Between 2002 and 2015, Newark sampled on a reduced sampling plan (50 samples once every 3 years), as required, for lead and copper. These samples were divided between Newark's two water sources with uneven sampling distribution across the city, further limiting the potential to identify a risk of lead in drinking water. Results suggest a more rigorous testing requirement may have identified the problem sooner. Limitations related to the LCR that prevented Newark water suppliers from earlier detection of lead risk will continue under the revised LCR. This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Water, Health, and SanitationScience of Water > Water Quality.
The coincidence of floods and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a genuine multihazard problem. Since the beginning of 2020, many regions around the World have been experiencing this double hazard of serious flooding and the pandemic. There have been 70 countries with flood events occurring after detection of the country's first COVID-19 case and hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated. The main objective of this article is to assess challenges that arise from complex intersections between the threat multipliers and to provide guidance on how to address them effectively. We consider the limitations of our knowledge including "unknown unknowns." During emergency evacuation, practicing social distancing can be very difficult. However, people are going to take action to respond to rising waters, even if it means breaking quarantine. This is an emergency manager's nightmare scenario: two potentially serious emergencies happening at once. During this unprecedented year (2020), we are experiencing one of the most challenging flood seasons we have seen in a while. Practical examples of issues and guides for managing floods and COVID-19 are presented. We feel that a new approach is needed in dealing with multiple hazards. Our main messages are: a resilience approach is needed whether in response to floods or a pandemic; preparation is vital, in addition to defense; the responsible actors must be prepared with actions plans and command structure, while the general population must be involved in the discussions so that they are aware of the risk and the reasons for the actions they must take. This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Methods.
River managers strive to use the best available science to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem function. To achieve this goal requires consideration of processes at different scales. Metacommunity theory describes how multiple species from different communities potentially interact with local-scale environmental drivers to influence population dynamics and community structure. However, this body of knowledge has only rarely been used to inform management practices for river ecosystems. In this paper, we present a conceptual model outlining how the metacommunity processes of local niche sorting and dispersal can influence the outcomes of management interventions and provide a series of specific recommendations for applying these ideas as well as research needs. In all cases, we identify situations where traditional approaches to riverine management could be enhanced by incorporating an understanding of metacommunity dynamics. A common theme is developing guidelines for assessing the metacommunity context of a site or region, evaluating how that context may affect the desired outcome, and incorporating that understanding into the planning process and methods used. To maximize the effectiveness of management activities, scientists and resource managers should update the toolbox of approaches to riverine management to reflect theoretical advances in metacommunity ecology.
While the story of the Flint water crisis has been shared widely, the popular narrative—described in multiple documentaries and as evidenced by accolades heaped upon a limited few number of actors involved with Flint—largely leaves out the broad experiences and actions of Flint residents in responding to the crisis, raising awareness, and advocating for change. Academic literature has contributed to reinforcing an abbreviated and disempowered version of the narrative where Flint residents needed rescue. In this article, we present an extended description of the Flint water crisis leading up to the water switch in April 2014, including descriptions of community mobilization efforts to call government actions into account and produce investigations that validated the concerns of the residents. We offer a review of prominent academic literature demonstrating patterns of erasure that suggest Flint residents were disempowered. In response, we offer three examples which demonstrate how Flint resident mobilizations have broad historical context, national reach, and individual actions that contradict the narrative that Flint residents lack agency and power. In our analysis, rather than viewing Flint residents as in need of rescue by science, we argue that the community mobilization in Flint is indicative of a highly successful implementation of popular epidemiology with profound effects on national conversations about lead in water, drinking water infrastructure management, and environmental justice.
Conceptual models underpin river ecosystem research. However, current models focus on continuously flowing rivers and few explicitly address characteristics such as flow cessation and drying. The applicability of existing conceptual models to nonperennial rivers that cease to flow (intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams, IRES) has not been evaluated. We reviewed 18 models, finding that they collectively describe main drivers of biogeochemical and ecological patterns and processes longitudinally (upstream-downstream), laterally (channel-riparian-floodplain), vertically (surface water-groundwater), and temporally across local and landscape scales. However, perennial rivers are longitudinally continuous while IRES are longitudinally discontinuous. Whereas perennial rivers have bidirectional lateral connections between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, in IRES, this connection is unidirectional for much of the time, from terrestrial-to-aquatic only. Vertical connectivity between surface and subsurface water occurs bidirectionally and is temporally consistent in perennial rivers. However, in IRES, this exchange is temporally variable, and can become unidirectional during drying or rewetting phases. Finally, drying adds another dimension of flow variation to be considered across temporal and spatial scales in IRES, much as flooding is considered as a temporally and spatially dynamic process in perennial rivers. Here, we focus on ways in which existing models could be modified to accommodate drying as a fundamental process that can alter these patterns and processes across spatial and temporal dimensions in streams. This perspective is needed to support river science and management in our era of rapid global change, including increasing duration, frequency, and occurrence of drying.
Beavers have the ability to modify ecosystems profoundly to meet their ecological needs, with significant associated hydrological, geomorphological, ecological, and societal impacts. To bring together understanding of the role that beavers may play in the management of water resources, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems, this article reviews the state-of-the-art scientific understanding of the beaver as the quintessential ecosystem engineer. This review has a European focus but examines key research considering both Castor fiber-the Eurasian beaver and Castor canadensis-its North American counterpart. In recent decades species reintroductions across Europe, concurrent with natural expansion of refugia populations has led to the return of C. fiber to much of its European range with recent reviews estimating that the C. fiber population in Europe numbers over 1.5 million individuals. As such, there is an increasing need for understanding of the impacts of beaver in intensively populated and managed, contemporary European landscapes. This review summarizes how beaver impact: (a) ecosystem structure and geomorphology, (b) hydrology and water resources, (c) water quality, (d) freshwater ecology, and (e) humans and society. It concludes by examining future considerations that may need to be resolved as beavers further expand in the northern hemisphere with an emphasis upon the ecosystem services that they can provide and the associated management that will be necessary to maximize the benefits and minimize conflicts. This article is categorized under:Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems.
Several software tools are available that can assess the performance of nonrevenue water (NRW) in water distribution networks and plan for reduction measures. Of the 21 tools that have been reported in the literature, 12 are freely available. The creation of these many tools and different versions of each individual tool indicates the promising future of NRW software development. This review comprises 12 freely available tools for water balance establishment, NRW performance assessment, and NRW reduction planning. Most of the tools have been developed to establish standard annual water balances and recommended performance indicators (PIs) for the entire network. Some tools have been developed to intervene and reduce the leakage in a district metered area. Key features increasingly being included in NRW software include uncertainty analysis, recognition of supply intermittency, and accommodation of a guidance matrix and benchmarks. Leakage assessment is fully recognized, and leakage reduction analyses are increasingly growing in the software tools. However, much less attention has been paid to assessing and options for reducing apparent losses. Although a comprehensive NRW management tool for monitoring, planning, and intervention is not currently available, developing a comprehensive tool is worthwhile, in the form of one package or a kit of smaller tools. Toward this goal, the article provides insights and recommendations addressing topics of intermittency, normalization, multi‐method assessment, planning for the reduction of apparent and real losses, and estimation of the economic level of water loss.
Streamflow observations can be used to understand, predict, and contextualize hydrologic, ecological, and biogeochemical processes and conditions in streams. Stream gages are point measurements along rivers where streamflow is measured, and are often used to infer upstream watershed-scale processes. When stream gages read zero, this may indicate that the stream has fully dried; however, zero-flow readings can also be caused by a wide range of other factors. Our ability to identify whether or not a zero-flow gage reading indicates a dry fluvial system has far reaching environmental implications. Incorrect identification and interpretation by the data user can lead to hydrologic, ecological, and/or biogeochemical predictions from models and analyses. Here, we describe several causes of zero-flow gage readings: frozen surface water, flow reversals, instrument error, and natural or human-driven upstream source losses or bypass flow. For these examples, we discuss the implications of zero-flow interpretations. We also highlight additional methodss for determining flow presence, including direct observations, statistical methods, and hydrologic models, which can be applied to interpret causes of zero-flow gage readings and implications for reach- and watershed-scale dynamics. Such efforts are necessary to improve our ability to understand and predict surface flow activation, cessation, and connectivity across river networks. Developing this integrated understanding of the wide range of possible meanings of zero-flows will only attain greater importance in a more variable and changing hydrologic climate.
The Fertile Crescent, its hilly flanks and surrounding drylands has been a critical region for studying how climate has influenced societal change, and this review focuses on the region over the last 20,000 years. The complex social, economic, and environmental landscapes in the region today are not new phenomena and understanding their interactions requires a nuanced, multidisciplinary understanding of the past. This review builds on a history of collaboration between the social and natural palaeoscience disciplines. We provide a multidisciplinary, multiscalar perspective on the relevance of past climate, environmental, and archaeological research in assessing present day vulnerabilities and risks for the populations of southwest Asia. We discuss the complexity of palaeoclimatic data interpretation, particularly in relation to hydrology, and provide an overview of key time periods of palaeoclimatic interest. We discuss the critical role that vegetation plays in the human–climate–environment nexus and discuss the implications of the available palaeoclimate and archaeological data, and their interpretation, for palaeonarratives of the region, both climatically and socially. We also provide an overview of how modelling can improve our understanding of past climate impacts and associated change in risk to societies. We conclude by looking to future work, and identify themes of “scale” and “seasonality” as still requiring further focus. We suggest that by appreciating a given locale's place in the regional hydroscape, be it an archaeological site or palaeoenvironmental archive, more robust links to climate can be made where appropriate and interpretations drawn will demand the resolution of factors acting across multiple scales.This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems
River flows connect people, places, and other forms of life, inspiring and sustaining diverse cultural beliefs, values, and ways of life. The concept of environmental flows provides a framework for improving understanding of relationships between river flows and people, and for supporting those that are mutually beneficial. Nevertheless, most approaches to determining environmental flows remain grounded in the biophysical sciences. The newly revised Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows (2018) represents a new phase in environmental flow science and an opportunity to better consider the co-constitution of river flows, ecosystems, and society, and to more explicitly incorporate these relationships into river management. We synthesize understanding of relationships between people and rivers as conceived under the renewed definition of environmental flows. We present case studies from Honduras, India, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia that illustrate multidisciplinary, collaborative efforts where recognizing and meeting diverse flow needs of human populations was central to establishing environmental flow recommendations. We also review a small body of literature to highlight examples of the diversity and interdependencies of human-flow relationships-such as the linkages between river flow and human well-being, spiritual needs, cultural identity, and sense of place-that are typically overlooked when environmental flows are assessed and negotiated. Finally, we call for scientists and water managers to recognize the diversity of ways of knowing, relating to, and utilizing rivers, and to place this recognition at the center of future environmental flow assessments. This article is categorized under: Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awareness Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented
A wide variety of processes controls the time of occurrence, duration, extent, and severity of river floods. Classifying flood events by their causative processes may assist in enhancing the accuracy of local and regional flood frequency estimates and support the detection and interpretation of any changes in flood occurrence and magnitudes. This paper provides a critical review of existing causative classifications of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events, discusses their validity and applications, and identifies opportunities for moving toward more comprehensive approaches. So far no unified definition of causative mechanisms of flood events exists. Existing frameworks for classification of instrumental and preinstrumental series of flood events adopt different perspectives: hydroclimatic (large-scale circulation patterns and atmospheric state at the time of the event), hydrological (catchment scale precipitation patterns and antecedent catchment state), and hydrograph-based (indirectly considering generating mechanisms through their effects on hydrograph characteristics). All of these approaches intend to capture the flood generating mechanisms and are useful for characterizing the flood processes at various spatial and temporal scales. However, uncertainty analyses with respect to indicators, classification methods, and data to assess the robustness of the classification are rarely performed which limits the transferability across different geographic regions. It is argued that more rigorous testing is needed. There are opportunities for extending classification methods to include indicators of space-time dynamics of rainfall, antecedent wetness, and routing effects, which will make the classification schemes even more useful for understanding and estimating floods. This article is categorized under:Science of Water > Water ExtremesScience of Water > Hydrological ProcessesScience of Water > Methods.
Water sharing offers insight into the everyday and, at times, invisible ties that bind people and households with water and to one another. Water sharing can take many forms, including so-called "pure gifts," balanced exchanges, and negative reciprocity. In this paper, we examine water sharing between households as a culturally-embedded practice that may be both need-based and symbolically meaningful. Drawing on a wide-ranging review of diverse literatures, we describe how households practice water sharing cross-culturally in the context of four livelihood strategies (hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, agricultural, and urban). We then explore how cross-cutting material conditions (risks and costs/benefits, infrastructure and technologies), socio-economic processes (social and political power, water entitlements, ethnicity and gender, territorial sovereignty), and cultural norms (moral economies of water, water ontologies, and religious beliefs) shape water sharing practices. Finally, we identify five new directions for future research on water sharing: conceptualization of water sharing; exploitation and status accumulation through water sharing, biocultural approaches to the health risks and benefits of water sharing, cultural meanings and socio-economic values of waters shared; and water sharing as a way to enact resistance and build alternative economies.
Over the past 15 years, pioneering interdisciplinary research has been performed on the microbiology of hydrogeologically well‐defined alpine karst springs located in the Northern Calcareous Alps (NCA) of Austria. This article gives an overview on these activities and links them to other relevant research. Results from the NCA springs and comparable sites revealed that spring water harbors abundant natural microbial communities even in aquifers with high water residence times and the absence of immediate surface influence. Apparently, hydrogeology has a strong impact on the concentration and size of the observed microbes, and total cell counts (TCC) were suggested as a useful means for spring type classification. Measurement of microbial activities at the NCA springs revealed extremely low microbial growth rates in the base flow component of the studied spring waters and indicated the importance of biofilm‐associated microbial activities in sediments and on rock surfaces. Based on genetic analysis, the autochthonous microbial endokarst community (AMEC) versus transient microbial endokarst community (TMEC) concept was proposed for the NCA springs, and further details within this overview article are given to prompt its future evaluation. In this regard, it is well known that during high‐discharge situations, surface‐associated microbes and nutrients such as from soil habitats or human settlements—potentially containing fecal‐associated pathogens as the most critical water‐quality hazard—may be rapidly flushed into vulnerable karst aquifers. In this context, a framework for the comprehensive analysis of microbial pollution has been proposed for the NCA springs to support the sustainable management of drinking water safety in accordance with recent World Health Organization guidelines. Near‐real‐time online water quality monitoring, microbial source tracking (MST) and MST‐guided quantitative microbial‐risk assessment (QMRA) are examples of the proposed analytical tools. In this context, this overview article also provides a short introduction to recently emerging methodologies in microbiological diagnostics to support reading for the practitioner. Finally, the article highlights future research and development needs. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation Science of Water > Water Extremes Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems
Urbanizing environments alter the hydrological cycle by redirecting stream networks for stormwater and wastewater transmission and increasing impermeable surfaces. These changes thereby accelerate the runoff of water and its constituents following precipitation events, alter evapotranspiration processes, and indirectly modify surface precipitation patterns. Green infrastructure, or low‐impact development ( LID ), can be used as a standalone practice or in concert with gray infrastructure (traditional stormwater management approaches) for cost‐efficient, decentralized stormwater management. The growth in LID over the past several decades has resulted in a concomitant increase in research evaluating LID efficiency and effectiveness, but mostly at localized scales. There is a clear research need to quantify how LID practices affect water quantity (i.e., runoff and discharge) and quality at the scale of catchments. In this overview, we present the state of the science of LID research at the local scale, considerations for scaling this research to catchments, recent advances and findings in scaling the effects of LID practices on water quality and quantity at catchment scales, and the use of models as novel tools for these scaling efforts. WIREs Water 2018, 5:e1254. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1254 This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Science of Water > Hydrological Processes Science of Water > Water Quality
