AUSTIN, Texas — Median household income is not the best measure when determining which areas are more likely to obtain water from contaminated sources.
That’s according to a recent study led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, which found that low population density, high housing vacancy rates, and social factors such as disability and race are contributing to the poor quality of local tap water. They found that the presence or absence of income may have a stronger influence than median household income. Health-based water quality violations are more likely to occur at the source. In general, rural communities and those that grew up around large industries that have left are most likely to experience water quality problems.
Approximately 10% of community water systems in the continental United States have reported health-based violations. This finding comes as many state and federal agencies use median household income as a key factor in determining how to allocate funds to assist disadvantaged communities. is important.
“As states develop definitions and seek to prioritize disadvantaged communities, they must consider various parameters to determine which is most appropriate for them,” said the lead author. said Bridget Scanlon, principal investigator at the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology. “This study provides a useful tool that legislators can use to learn more about how different types of social vulnerabilities are related to different water quality issues. will help us come up with the lasting solutions needed to solve these problems.”
The study was published in Environment Research Letters.
The passage of a new federal drinking water infrastructure law inspired Scanlon and his colleagues to investigate the link between social vulnerability and water quality violations. The new law requires states to allocate at least 49% of nearly $50 billion in federal funds to address water issues in disadvantaged communities.
However, which areas are considered disadvantaged is often left to state policymakers to decide, and research shows that most states set median household income as the primary (or It is said that you are choosing to use it as the only) element.
Researchers tested how well median incomes matched water quality violations reported in community water systems across the continental United States from 2018 to 2020. The results were then compared to those of a new social vulnerability index created for this study that takes into account 15 social factors. The study’s social indicators are similar to those created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that are used to identify communities that may need more assistance during natural disasters and public health emergencies. It has been changed based on the indicators.
The index the researchers created proved to be a better indicator, capturing the population affected by water quality violations in areas with three times the median household income. This result highlights the relationship between social vulnerability and water quality. Based on this index, approximately 70% of people targeted for health-based water quality violations were ranked as the most socially vulnerable.
This study also focuses on specific social factors associated with an increased likelihood of encountering water quality problems and how these change based on the specific water quality issue at hand.
For example, most water quality problems are caused by naturally occurring minerals that leach from rocks, such as arsenic, or byproducts of water treatment used to kill bacteria. Most of the communities facing these problems are located in rural and deindustrialized areas. The index found that vacant properties, population density, and disability rates are the top three factors that most increase the likelihood of facing a health-based water quality violation.
According to the study authors, many water quality problems are downstream from demographic trends, and many local water systems lack the financial, administrative, and technical capacity to address water quality issues.
This research was funded by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency through the Jackson School of Geosciences. The paper was co-authored by Bureau of Economic Geology researchers Robert Reedy and Sara Fakhreddin, and University of California, Los Angeles researcher Gregory Pearce.