Murray Andrew, Hall Alexander, Weaver James, Kremer Fran
Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Office of Research and Development, United States Environmental Protection Agency Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
J Am Water Resour Assoc. 2021 Oct;57(5):1-16. doi: 10.1111/1752-1688.12937.
In 1990, the last time the decennial census included a question on domestic drinking water source, it was estimated that private domestic water wells (PDWs) supplied household water to about 15.1 million housing units (15% of the population) in the United States (U.S.). PDWs are not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, and with few exceptions, are not subject to the water quality testing required of public water suppliers. We expanded two methods in estimating housing units reliant on PDWs from an Oklahoma pilot study (Weaver et al. 2017), nationally. Both use 1990 census data on drinking water sources as a baseline. The first method uses housing unit change and private well drilling logs for 20 states. This allows for the rate of well use to change between 1990 and 2010 in these states. The second, based solely on housing unit change, assumes a constant rate of well use. Ordinary least squares regression demonstrated ( = 0.78) that the methods yield similar estimates for nationwide well use. Using the housing unit change method, it is estimated that in 2010, 23 million housing units were reliant on PDWs (17% of the population). We provide these estimates at the census block group and census block resolution. This dataset will assist in a better understanding of the reliance on PDWs in the U.S., and position local, tribal, state, and national groups to better protect this water resource from contaminant sources.
The work provides improved estimates of the spatial distribution of housing units reliant on private domestic wells in the United States and a foundation to protect this water supply at all levels of government.
1990年，十年一次的人口普查最后一次纳入关于家庭饮用水源的问题，据估计，美国约1510万个住房单元（占人口的15%）的家庭用水由私人家庭水井（PDW）供应。私人家庭水井不受《安全饮用水法》监管，除少数例外情况，也无需接受公共供水商所要求的水质检测。我们在全国范围内扩展了俄克拉荷马州一项试点研究（韦弗等人，2017年）中估算依赖私人家庭水井的住房单元的两种方法。两种方法均将1990年饮用水源的人口普查数据用作基线。第一种方法使用20个州的住房单元变化和私人水井钻探记录。这使得这些州在1990年至2010年期间的水井使用率得以变化。第二种方法仅基于住房单元变化，假设水井使用率恒定。普通最小二乘法回归表明（ = 0.78），这两种方法得出的全国水井使用估算值相似。使用住房单元变化方法估算，2010年有2300万个住房单元依赖私人家庭水井（占人口的17%）。我们按普查街区组和普查街区分辨率提供这些估算值。该数据集将有助于更好地了解美国对私人家庭水井的依赖情况，并使地方、部落、州和国家各级团体能够更好地保护这一水资源免受污染源侵害。
这项工作改进了对美国依赖私人家庭水井的住房单元空间分布的估算，并为各级政府保护这一供水提供了基础。
