Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center on Sanitation and Water Infrastructure of the Future for Marginalized Communities (SWIFt-MC)

North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC

Investigators

Abstract

Marginalized communities in the US (e.g., majority black and Hispanic urban-outskirt (peri-urban) communities and smaller rural municipalities with low levels of economic and technical resources) are less likely to have access to critical environmental health infrastructure, such as centralized drinking water or sewer lines. They also rely more on small and onsite systems and have less access to technological advances. Multiple studies show that current onsite systems pose higher health risks than regulated community water and sewer services. Marginalized communities also bear the brunt of ecological habitat shifts and natural disasters and lack financial and local resources to embrace and adapt technological innovations. By focusing on marginalized communities, the Convergent Engineering Research Center for Sanitation and Water Infrastructure of the Future for Marginalized Communities (SWIFt-MC) will unlock innovations that can serve the >60 million US citizens that rely on decentralized onsite sanitation, the 8% of the US population served by small drinking water systems and private wells, and the billions of people in emerging markets without access to acceptable water and sanitation. The proposed Engineering Research Center (ERC) SWlFt-MC will embrace a convergent research approach that will lead to: 1) novel and improved context-adapted technologies for small and on-site water and wastewater/sanitation systems, 2) new sensors and techniques for quantifying chemical and microbial contaminants, 3) new systems- based models and frameworks that deepen our understanding of exposures, and 4) new solutions and interventions that incorporate social, economic, and behavioral factors. SWIFt-MC will lead to research and education that is transformative through advancing fundamental understanding of basic sciences, environmental sciences, and public health sciences to develop and test public health infrastructure technologies and solutions for marginalized communities. This understanding will cut across and push the boundaries of physical, chemical, biological, social, and computational sciences in the area water and sanitation. SWIFt-MC will also catalyze the re-thinking of engineering education. By defining the beneficiaries of engineering advances, SWIFt-MC will empower underrepresented K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students to address problems affecting the disadvantaged, and emphasize community engagement and systems- and long-term thinking. SWIFt-MC will lead to research, education, and outreach that is translational, as the findings will impact practices and solutions that will be tested and evaluated in several marginalized communities in the US and around the world. SWIFt-MC?s vision is to change the current public health infrastructure within the next ten years, advancing small and on-site systems from the 1970s to 21st century technology. This planning grant will convene the necessary stakeholders and thought-leaders around this collective vision through face-to-face discussions and workshops that feature Systematic Inventive Thinking (e.g., TRIZ) and the science of team science. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.