Surveillance Tools

Our Work:
Surveillance tools that equip residents, communities, and agencies to predict households and neighborhoods that are more vulnerable and less reliant to drinking water contamination are critically needed. Implementing our knowledge of natural, built, and social drivers, my team and I have identified factors that increase a user’s and neighborhood’s likelihood of accessing unsafe drinking water. Our vision is to create tools that identify at-risk populations to help prioritize communities most in need of assistance through integrating NASA satellite observation data, NOAA’s National Water Model, drinking water supply and water quality data, demographic information, and self-reported water use behaviors data.

Impacts:
We will enable health departments to identify at-risk private wells based on short-term hazard forecasts (hours to months), during and post-disaster assessments (i.e., drought, flood), and spatio-temporal fluctuations in contamination rates (e.g., impacts of changes in landcover).


Funded by NSF and FEMA, NASA’s Applied Sciences Water Resources Program, Earth Science Division, and Global Precipitation Measurement Mission