海角换妻

Water for the World

Professors Joe Goodwill, Vinka Oyanedel-Craver, Tom Boving, and Ali Akanda at the Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering on 海角换妻’s Kingston Campus.

These researchers say clean water is possible the world over. They are using and studying diverse technologies, from the simplest to the most advanced. But they all say changing the way we think about water is key.

By Marybeth Reilly-McGreen

Threats to freshwater are a common refrain in news coverage of natural disasters, contamination catastrophes, and health crises. And for good reason.

Half of the world鈥檚 population, 4 billion people, will experience water scarcity this year. About 2 billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water, according to the United Nations. Unsafe water, substandard sanitation, and subpar hygiene cause the deaths of 1,000 children a day, according to UNICEF.

Such statistics have prompted some scientists, economists, and business leaders to proclaim that water is the new oil. And while some places experience urgent and prolonged water problems because of socioeconomic disparities鈥攖he Flint, Mich., water crisis that began in 2014, for example鈥攚ater troubles recognize no borders and make no class or income distinctions.

Thomas Boving, professor and chair of 海角换妻鈥檚 Department of Geosciences and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is a hydrogeologist who studies coastal Rhode Island鈥檚 freshwater supplies. The pressure placed on the coast鈥檚 freshwater supply by tourism and climate change, he says, could create a serious water crisis and tank communities鈥� tourism-based economies.

We need to change our relationship with water, Boving says.

鈥淲e have to be cognizant of the limitations of our natural environment and think about the future鈥攖hat should be on everyone鈥檚 mind,鈥� says Boving. 鈥淲e need to change our attitudes toward water. It is a finite resource; high-quality water has a value that must be accounted for properly. And if that means water costs more in the future, well, maybe that incentivizes us to use less of what we have鈥攁nd to use it more wisely.鈥�

Boving has made access to freshwater a research priority. So have the three principal investigators in 海角换妻鈥檚 Water for the World Lab鈥擜li Akanda, Vinka Oyanedel-Craver, and Joseph Goodwill. All three are professors of civil and environmental engineering and, along with Boving, they are engaged in humanitarian engineering and in monitoring some of the most pressing water issues in Rhode Island and around the globe. They are exploring old and new technologies for recycling contaminated water, investigating ways to make water stronger under stress, and developing novel systems for predicting waterborne disease outbreaks.

Ali Akanda is an associate professor and graduate director in the civil and environmental engineering department of the College of Engineering. His research areas include hydrologic forecasting, water-related disasters, climate change impacts on water security, emerging water and health issues, hydro-climatic influences on cholera, and early warning systems for the global health community.

Ali Akanda: Predicting Waterborne Disease

From his office in the Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering, Ali Akanda uses the Google Earth Engine to demonstrate how he, his colleagues, and students are using computer modeling and satellite datasets to create early warning systems and avert cholera outbreaks. At the moment, he is focusing on how climate change and increased water demand affect water security, agriculture, and public health issues around the world. His monitor displays an area of the Middle East. The specific location must be kept secret for geopolitical reasons.

鈥淭his map shows how dry the area is and where agricultural pockets are,鈥� Akanda says. 鈥淲e found out growers were using up their groundwater at an alarming rate鈥攖hree times the rate they officially claimed. So, if they say they have about 60 years鈥� worth of water there, we think it鈥檒l run out in 20 or 30 years.鈥�

Akanda is no stranger to water crises. He grew up in Bangladesh, where two of Asia鈥檚 largest rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, form the biggest delta in the world and flow into the Bay of Bengal. There, the monsoon brings record downpours in a rainy season that lasts four months. Akanda saw extreme weather drain rivers dry and then flood them to the size of an ocean. 鈥淚 was always fascinated by water and its changes,鈥� he says.

鈥淚n Bangladesh, there鈥檚 great water scarcity in the dry season and then huge floods when the monsoon comes. You see the disaster and the people鈥檚 suffering almost every year,鈥� Akanda adds. 鈥淎nd, of course, with water problems come disease and public health problems.鈥�

Akanda and his students are monitoring the conditions that seed cholera outbreaks. Cholera, a waterborne disease, is preventable but can be deadly for some people if they don鈥檛 get treatment quickly enough. Cholera often goes underreported, making accurate numbers hard to come by.

But the World Health Organization estimates there are between 1.3 million and 4 million cholera cases worldwide, annually. Of those, 21,000 to 143,000 result in death.

鈥淲hat we can do as scientists is monitor the environmental changes happening before the outbreak happens. That鈥檚 how we started using satellite datasets,鈥� Akanda says. 鈥淲e are able to get observations around the clock and from across the world鈥攐f rainfall, streamflow, soil moisture, temperature, amount of vegetation, the color of the water鈥攖hat we can combine in our models to predict areas that may be more at risk.

鈥淚f we know a particular area is at risk, or higher risk, than surrounding areas, the information can be taken to public-health decision-makers and people on the ground so that they know the risks. Such early warnings can potentially help them make lifesaving decisions.

鈥淥ur goal, says Akanda, 鈥渋s to change the top-down approach to a bottom-up, grassroots approach, and convey cholera-risk information directly to users through technology, like smartphones apps.鈥�

Akanda has evidence such an approach can work. He recently led a team on a pilot project in which a simple smartphone app was used as a risk communication tool in a rural area of Bangladesh. The project, funded by NASA, showed that technical information about cholera risk can be directly communicated to people to inform and influence their water usage behavior.

Tom Boving is a professor of environmental hydrology in the Department of Geosciences in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences and an affiliated member of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty. His research interests include the fate and transport of organic and inorganic contaminants, innovative remediation technologies, and stormwater treatment and bank filtration technology. He has been an expert witness in water pollution litigation.

Tom Boving: We Might Need to Change Our Water Practices

For the past 15 years, Tom Boving has worked with communities in southern India to establish riverbank filtration systems鈥攗sing a 4,000- to 5,000-year-old technology described in the Bible.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 new about the technology is that people forgot about it; it鈥檚 basically exploiting natural filtration processes, forcing water from polluted rivers to infiltrate the surrounding sediments鈥攇ravel, sand, and whatnot,鈥� Boving says.

鈥淲e鈥檙e forcing surface water to move through the ground toward a well,鈥� he continues. 鈥淒uring that passage through sediments, bacteria are removed, heavy metal loads are reduced, and some fertilizers are remediated. What we end up with is water that鈥檚 much better than it was at the surface.鈥�

Closer to home, Boving has worked with the Block Island Water Company to monitor the island鈥檚 water usage. Block Island is small鈥�7 miles long and 3 miles wide鈥攂ut data gathered there offers insight into global water issues such as the effects of changing water tables, rainfall levels, and drought on a community鈥檚 freshwater supply.

For instance, if demand causes an island鈥檚 aquifer to be overpumped, it can become contaminated with salt water. If rainfall doesn鈥檛 replenish an aquifer, access to fresh water is jeopardized.

So, for a community like Block Island, a drought during peak tourism season could be devastating.

鈥淚f surface water鈥攚ater in lakes and rivers鈥攇oes dry, you can bet that affects groundwater,鈥� Boving says. 鈥淪o, if droughts become more common, we鈥檒l see more stress on our water resources.鈥�

“Is there enough water to sustain our practices, or do we maybe have to change our habits, our way of life?”

Tom Boving, Professor of Environmental Hydrology

Tourist season on Block Island brings the island鈥檚 aquifer 鈥渢o the brink,鈥� Boving says. 鈥淚s Block Island in imminent danger of losing its water or can we find a strategy, a pathway to accommodate the tourist economy with what鈥檚 available?

鈥淲e need more information, more years of study,鈥� he continues. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an interesting project because it reflects what鈥檚 going on in other parts of the country, of the world, where people are facing the same issue: Is there enough water to sustain our practices, or do we maybe have to change our habits, our way of life?鈥�

Vinka Oyanedel-Craver is a professor of environmental and civil engineering and associate dean for research in 海角换妻鈥檚 College of Engineering. She studies environmental and sustainable engineering, water and wastewater technologies, environmental nanotechnology, international development, diversity in the water sector, and environmental justice. She has led several research and service-learning initiatives in South Africa, Guatemala, Jordan, Ghana, and Chile.

Vinka Oyanedel-Craver: Simple Technology Can Be the Best Solution

Vinka Oyanedel-Craver has worked with people in remote villages across five continents to manufacture ceramic water filtration systems. She displays a PowerPoint slide showing two images. On the left is an image of two petri dishes, one that teems with gray slime and black dots resembling poppy seeds. On the right is an image of two young girls holding single-use water bottles filled with ochre-colored water, their tap water.

The muck in the petri dish grew from a sample of that tap water. Every black dot is a potentially pathogenic bacterium, Oyanedel-Craver says. 鈥淪o, here we have 1,000 potentially pathogenic bacteria. To put it in perspective, our regulations allow for zero pathogenic bacteria.

鈥淭his is the reality of the water some people are drinking. Globally, this can result in hundreds of millions of people getting sick. The part that is critical for me,鈥� says Oyanedel-Craver, 鈥渋s that most of those people are going to be children, aged 5 and younger, because they are more vulnerable to the dehydration caused by waterborne illness.鈥�

It doesn鈥檛 have to be that way.

鈥淭his is a completely preventable situation,鈥� Oyanedel-Craver says. 鈥淭his is not
a medical problem. We can prevent all such diseases from happening using simple technologies.鈥�

The answer, she says, is to work with each community to understand its capacity for adopting and supporting technological interventions. Put another way, researchers like Oyanedel-Craver mustn鈥檛 barrel into a community and install high-tech filtration systems. Supply chain issues, cost of materials, and community education levels can determine whether a particular water filtration device is a sustainable solution. 鈥淪ophisticated technology solutions are not good in a community that doesn鈥檛 have the experience and technical skills to manage them,鈥� Oyanedel-Craver says.

鈥淲e need solutions that communities can afford and are capable of maintaining long-term, socially acceptable solutions that people want to use,鈥� she says.

“Affordability, social acceptance, and simplicity鈥攐r matching the technological capacity to the community鈥攊s critical.”

Vinka Oyanedel-Craver, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The filtration solution Oyanedel-Craver prefers is a ceramic water filter that looks very much like a flowerpot that works like a low-tech microfiltration membrane. 鈥淭he entire process, from the collection of the material to the processing, pressing, firing, and testing of the filters,鈥� she says, 鈥渃an be done by potters in the local community.鈥�

These ceramic water filters reduce bacteria by 99.9% and have a 95% community acceptance rate.

Oyanedel-Craver estimates she鈥檚 introduced more than 60 海角换妻 students to these sustainable filtration systems which, in addition to filtering drinking water, can also be used in wastewater management. 鈥淥ur students have engaged with local governments, worked on rainwater harvesting systems, and they鈥檝e even built a biodigester to take advantage of organic matter to produce energy. In one town, they developed one of the first water-quality laboratories.鈥�

But perhaps the most important thing the students have learned is cultural awareness.

鈥淵ou can have the greatest technologies, but if you don鈥檛 educate the users鈥攊f you don鈥檛 communicate and work with them鈥攖hey are not going to be working at their prime,鈥� Oyanedel-Craver says. 鈥淎ffordability, social acceptance, and simplicity鈥攐r matching the technological capacity to the community鈥攊s critical.鈥�

Joe Goodwill is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. He studies physical-chemical processes as they relate to water quality. He is also interested in water poverty issues and wastewater treatment and reuse. Goodwill has worked with non-governmental organizations in Bolivia, Ghana, India, and Malawi.

Joe Goodwill: Water, Under Pressure

What galvanization does for steel, Joe Goodwill is doing for drinking water.

Goodwill, who holds the Carroll D. & Charles M. Billmyer professorship in engineering, is on a mission to get his peers thinking about how chemically treating water systems, rendering them 鈥渁nti-fragile,鈥� might strengthen that water when it鈥檚 placed under stress from pollutants. Goodwill argues that anti-fragility is a kind of insurance plan against major disruptive events such as a global pandemic or the effects of climate change.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e not so beholden to models to predict the future. It鈥檚 kind of freeing,鈥� Goodwill says. 鈥淚f you think, as I do, that things are getting more volatile, then having an adversarial relationship with the future is a losing proposition.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the soapbox I鈥檓 on right now.鈥�

Goodwill is the product of a happy rural childhood in Camden, N.Y.鈥攏ear the Adirondacks. 鈥淢y childhood imbued me with an appreciation for nature and for the struggles that exist in rural America,鈥� he says. 鈥淥ne of those struggles is that there are higher risks of water quality violations that can affect people鈥檚 health in rural America.鈥�

In a proposal for a National Science Foundation grant, Goodwill focused on how science might solve water quality violations in rural areas. He argued that part of the challenge is that the technology brought to bear on the problem is inappropriate for smaller systems. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we sit down often enough and ask if what works in Providence or Boston is going to work in Exeter, Rhode Island,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 think if we did that, we鈥檇 admit that the answer is 鈥榥o,鈥� at least in terms of water quality.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 a professor in environmental engineering because I鈥檓 an optimist and I鈥檓 willing to fight for the environment. What does that mean? Our industrialized humanity does great damage to the environment, and that can impact our public health,鈥� Goodwill says. 鈥淲hen we pollute the sources of our drinking water, that becomes a problem. But I believe that environmental engineering exists so that we don鈥檛 have to make all the trade-offs that we otherwise deserve, meaning we can live in cities and produce a ton of waste and keep it out of our drinking water sources.

Joe Goodwill in the Water for the World Lab in the Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering on 海角换妻’s Kingston Campus.

鈥淲e can commute all over and have our stormwater adequately managed.
A lot of these problems are solvable. It鈥檚 just a matter of allocating resources and applying human potential,鈥� Goodwill continues. 鈥淪o, I hope a student in one of my classes walks away with the idea that the problems in front of us鈥攁t least our environmental ones鈥攃an be solved.鈥�

It will be an all-hands-on-deck endeavor, requiring investment in infrastructure and technology and requiring government and research institutions to work together.

鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 a matter of technology not being available. But, oftentimes, it鈥檚 just a matter of getting it done鈥攁nd maybe some political will and funding,鈥� Goodwill says. 鈥淏ut鈥攁nd I hope my students share my perspective鈥攊t鈥檚 not a doomsday situation. The best days could still be in front of us.

鈥淏ut we have to be good stewards of the environment and protect public health.鈥�

PHOTOS: SETH JACOBSON, NORA LEWIS; COURTESY VINKA OYANEDEL-CRAVER

The Water for the World Lab in 海角换妻鈥檚 Fascitelli Center for Advanced Engineering is supported by a gift from Barry Gertz 鈥�76 and Sandy Gertz 鈥�86.