Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, NC State University, Raleigh, NC, USA; Center for Geospatial Analytics, NC State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, NC State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Jan 10;907:167577. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167577. Epub 2023 Oct 13.
Flood disasters can induce the mass transport of soils and sediments. This has the potential to distribute contaminants and present novel combinations to new locations - including residential neighborhoods. Even when soil contaminants cannot be directly attributed to the disaster, data on bacterial and heavy metal(loids) can facilitate an environmentally just recovery by enabling reconstruction decisions that fill data gaps to minimize future exposure. These data-gathering interventions may be especially useful in poor, rural, and racially diverse communities where there is a high probability of exposure to multiple hazards and a potential dependency on the financial resources of disaster aid as a means of reducing chronic exposures to other environmental pollutants. At the same time, entering these post-disasters spaces is ethically complex. To acknowledge this complexity, we pilot a framework for work that gathers social-ecological hazard information while retaining a fair-minded approach to transdisciplinary work. Assembled a transdisciplinary team to recruit participants from 90 households subjected to flooding in the southeastern US. Participating households agreed to interviews to elicit flood experience and environmental health concerns, soil sampling for fecal bacteria (E. coli) and soil sampling for selected heavy metals and metalloids (Pb, As, Cd) at their flooded residence. Soil sampling found a wide range of E. coli concentrations in soil (0.4-1115.7 CFU/ dry gram). Heavy metal(loid)s were detected at most residences (As 97.9 %; Ca 25.5 %; Pb 100 %). Individually, heavy metal(loid) concentrations did not exceed regulatory thresholds. Hazard, risk, and mitigation concerns expressed during interviews reveal that integrated human-nature concepts complicate common understandings of how hazard perceptibility (smell, sight, touch, and information) affects research-action spaces. Qualitative analysis of interviews and field notes revealed that soil-related hazards addressed by our biophysical protocols were less salient than changes with direct causal associations with flooding. We conclude by discussing the potential for the social-ecological hazard information that is fair-minded and transdisciplinary (SHIFT) framework to advance environmentally just approaches to research-action spaces after disasters.
洪水灾害会导致土壤和沉积物的大规模迁移。这有可能将污染物分布到新的地方，并呈现出新的组合——包括居民区。即使土壤污染物不能直接归因于灾害，细菌和重金属（类金属）的数据也可以通过促进环境公正的恢复，为最小化未来暴露风险做出重建决策，从而填补数据空白。这些数据收集干预措施在贫穷、农村和种族多样化的社区可能特别有用，因为这些社区极有可能接触到多种危害，并且可能依赖灾害援助的财政资源来减少对其他环境污染物的慢性暴露。与此同时，进入这些灾后空间在伦理上是复杂的。为了承认这种复杂性，我们为一项工作框架进行了试点，该框架在保留对跨学科工作公平的态度的同时，收集社会生态危害信息。组建了一个跨学科团队，从美国东南部遭受洪水侵袭的 90 户家庭中招募参与者。参与家庭同意接受访谈，以了解洪水经历和环境健康问题，在他们受洪水影响的住所采集土壤样本，用于检测粪便细菌（大肠杆菌）和选定重金属和类金属（铅、砷、镉）。土壤样本中发现了广泛的大肠杆菌浓度（0.4-1115.7 CFU/干克）。大多数住宅都检测到重金属（类金属）（砷 97.9%；钙 25.5%；铅 100%）。个别重金属（类金属）浓度未超过监管阈值。访谈中表达的危险、风险和缓解关切表明，人与自然的综合概念使人们对危险感知（气味、视觉、触觉和信息）如何影响研究-行动空间的常见理解变得复杂。对访谈和实地笔记的定性分析表明，我们的生物物理方案所涉及的土壤相关危害不如与洪水直接因果关系相关的变化明显。最后，我们讨论了社会生态危害信息公平和跨学科（SHIFT）框架在灾难后为研究-行动空间推进环境公正方法的潜力。
