Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78758, United States.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2022 Sep 20;56(18):12965-12974. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.1c08697. Epub 2022 Aug 31.
Approximately 10% of community water systems in the United States experience a health-based violation of drinking water quality; however, recently allocated funds for improving United States water infrastructure ($50 billion) provide an opportunity to address these issues. The objective of this study was to examine environmental, operational, and sociodemographic drivers of spatiotemporal variability in drinking water quality violations using geospatial analysis and data analytics. Random forest modeling was used to evaluate drivers of these violations, including environmental (e.g., landcover, climate, geology), operational (e.g., water source, system size), and sociodemographic (social vulnerability, rurality) drivers. Results of random forest modeling show that drivers of violations vary by violation type. For example, arsenic and radionuclide violations are found mostly in the Southwest and Southcentral United States related to semiarid climate, whereas disinfection byproduct rule violations are found primarily in Southcentral United States related to system operations. Health-based violations are found primarily in small systems in rural and suburban settings. Understanding the drivers of water quality violations can help develop optimal approaches for addressing these issues to increase compliance in community water systems, particularly small systems in rural areas across the United States.
大约 10%的美国社区供水系统存在基于健康的饮用水水质违规问题；然而，最近为改善美国水基础设施而分配的资金（500 亿美元）为解决这些问题提供了机会。本研究的目的是利用地理空间分析和数据分析来研究饮用水水质违规行为的时空变化的环境、运行和社会人口统计学驱动因素。随机森林模型用于评估这些违规行为的驱动因素，包括环境（如土地覆盖、气候、地质）、运行（如水源、系统规模）和社会人口统计学（社会脆弱性、农村性）驱动因素。随机森林模型的结果表明，违规行为的驱动因素因违规行为类型而异。例如，砷和放射性核素违规行为主要发生在美国西南部和中南部，与半干旱气候有关，而消毒副产物规则违规行为主要发生在美国中南部，与系统运行有关。基于健康的违规行为主要发生在农村和郊区的小型系统中。了解水质违规行为的驱动因素可以帮助制定解决这些问题的最佳方法，以提高社区供水系统的合规性，特别是美国农村地区的小型系统。
