Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Science Team Active
The Team Provides Tools to Visualize Data
The Team Studies Toxicants and Pathogens in Drinking Water
To understand if and when humans are exposed
The Team Studies Toxicants and Pathogens in Streams
To understand if and when wildlife are exposed
The Team Studies Toxicant and Pathogen Sources and Movement
The Team Develops Tools to Understand Health Effects
The team studies toxicants and pathogens in water resources from their sources, through watersheds, aquifers, and infrastructure to human and wildlife exposures. That information is used to develop decision tools that protect human and wildlife health.
Americans rely on treatment of drinking water and wastewater, and the maintenance of water distribution infrastructure to assure safe water supplies for the public and wildlife. New chemicals are manufactured and used every day. Populations grow and demographics shift. Treatment, conveyance and plumbing infrastructure ages, and new technologies are developed to detect contaminants (toxicants and pathogens) at low levels. Consequently, questions arise about the health effects of exposure to contaminants indivually or in complex mixtures.
The US Geological Survey’s Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Science Team provides information on processes that affect contaminants as they move from naturally occurring and human-caused sources through aquifers, aquatic environments, and infrastructure. This comprehensive understanding of contaminant profiles from source to exposure is used to develop decision tools to economically, effectively, and efficiently reduce wildlife or human exposure and associated health risks.
The Team prioritizes science in underserved urban and rural agricultural communities and in tribal nations, which are disproportionally impacted by geologic and climatic events, by drinking-water source limitations and resultant dependence on water-reuse and unregulated/unmonitored private-wells.
More Information
Date Visualization: "Drop by Drop" and "PFAS Interactive Tool"
GeoHEALTH–USGS Newsletter-Special Issue on Drinking Water
Questions That the Team Answers:
- Is treated wastewater effluent a source of contaminants to streams that serve as source water for publicly and self-supplied drinking water supplies?
- What contaminants are in tap waters from publicly and self-supplied drinking water sources?
- What factors influence the types of contaminants that are present in tap water?
- Are there hazards to fish and wildlife associated with exposure to low-levels of contaminants in streams that receive wastewater?
- What mitigation actions are the most efficient and cost effective at reducing exposure at the tap for humans? Or in water resources for wildlife?
- Can decision tools be established to to define, prioritize and mitigate human and wildlife health risks?
- Overview
The team studies toxicants and pathogens in water resources from their sources, through watersheds, aquifers, and infrastructure to human and wildlife exposures. That information is used to develop decision tools that protect human and wildlife health.
Americans rely on treatment of drinking water and wastewater, and the maintenance of water distribution infrastructure to assure safe water supplies for the public and wildlife. New chemicals are manufactured and used every day. Populations grow and demographics shift. Treatment, conveyance and plumbing infrastructure ages, and new technologies are developed to detect contaminants (toxicants and pathogens) at low levels. Consequently, questions arise about the health effects of exposure to contaminants indivually or in complex mixtures.
The US Geological Survey’s Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Science Team provides information on processes that affect contaminants as they move from naturally occurring and human-caused sources through aquifers, aquatic environments, and infrastructure. This comprehensive understanding of contaminant profiles from source to exposure is used to develop decision tools to economically, effectively, and efficiently reduce wildlife or human exposure and associated health risks.
The Team prioritizes science in underserved urban and rural agricultural communities and in tribal nations, which are disproportionally impacted by geologic and climatic events, by drinking-water source limitations and resultant dependence on water-reuse and unregulated/unmonitored private-wells.
More Information
Date Visualization: "Drop by Drop" and "PFAS Interactive Tool"
GeoHEALTH–USGS Newsletter-Special Issue on Drinking Water
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media DetailsThe Environmental Health Program's Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Science Team and other USGS Programs are building upon their previous studies to understand sources and occurrence of toxicants and pathogens in aquifers, streams, drinking water facilities and tap waters in homes and residences. This information is used to understand human and wildlife exposure, and to determine if there are any adverse effects upon exposure (Credit: Razmus Y. Kerwin. Public domain.).
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media DetailsDrinking water in the United States rarely is tested for contaminants and pathogens at the tap, where human exposure can occur. In this special issue, we present the science to help understand contaminants and pathogens in drinking water at business and residential taps. Questions That the Team Answers:
- Is treated wastewater effluent a source of contaminants to streams that serve as source water for publicly and self-supplied drinking water supplies?
- What contaminants are in tap waters from publicly and self-supplied drinking water sources?
- What factors influence the types of contaminants that are present in tap water?
- Are there hazards to fish and wildlife associated with exposure to low-levels of contaminants in streams that receive wastewater?
- What mitigation actions are the most efficient and cost effective at reducing exposure at the tap for humans? Or in water resources for wildlife?
- Can decision tools be established to to define, prioritize and mitigate human and wildlife health risks?
- Science
- Data
- Publications