Spring 2022 SAFES Distinguished Speaker Series: Joan Rose
Abstract: There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to countries world-wide including the United States, that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof. https://www.dhs.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors.
Water is one of those critical pieces and is part of the world’s life support systems on which the Blue Planet depends upon. Lloyd’s City Risk Index of 301 cities shows that natural threats including floods and human disease pandemics are among the top risks estimated to potential cost $2.43 trillion dollars.
In the last 60 years we have seen a great acceleration of population growth (in people and animals), landuse change, use of fertilizers, and water. This has led us into the anthropocene where continued water quality degradation as demonstrated by increased eutrophication and fecal contamination associated with microbial hazards and antibiotic resistance is a global phenomenon. This is all exacerbated by climate change.
Waterborne diseases in humans are characterized by pathogens including bacteria, parasites and viruses which are persistent, potent, excreted at high numbers and zoonotic. Through the use of new molecular tools and instrumentation, specific hazards are now identifiable (through microbial source tracking and pathogen specific diagnostic testing). These technological advances have allowed for improved watershed and wastewater monitoring to provide the necessary data for making decisions. Effective and efficient mitigation requires understanding fecal pollution and control of the variety of microbial hazards using improved microbial risk assessment frameworks. We must remove 99.9% or 99.99% of pathogens in wastewater prior to discharge to maintain low risk and enhance safety of water to support ecosystem services.