Collaborative Research: RAPID: Assessing the Resilience of Centralized and Decentralized Water Supply Infrastructure to Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico

This RAPID project focuses on the resilience of water supply infrastructure in Puerto Rico in response to Hurricane Fiona. Highly transient, perishable data will be collected through surveys on different hurricane-impacted water suppliers, workshops with a broad range of stakeholders, and field trips to monitor the quality of raw and finished water at selected water supply systems. The data will be organized, synthesized, and analyzed to 1)assess and compare behaviors of centralized vs. decentralized water supply systems in Puerto Rico in and after Hurricane Fiona; 2) evaluate the effectiveness of technological and management strategies taken since Hurricane Maria to strengthen the resilience of water supply; 3) assess short and long-term impacts of Hurricane Fiona on water quality; and 4) explore potential alternative emergency water supply methods and their barriers to application in Puerto Rico. The efforts will advance fundamental understanding on the responses of different water supply infrastructure under a shock such as storms. The resulting knowledge will support the development of the principles for hurricane-adaptive water supply infrastructure.This project will enhance the adaptive capacity of water supply infrastructure to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a strong storm. Although this project targets Puerto Rico, the knowledge gained may readily be extended to water infrastructure in other U.S. coastal areas (e.g., Florida and North Carolina) and territories (e.g., U.S. Virgin Islands). The benefit is straightforward and immediate to disaster-affected populations because water is an essential demand. Particularly, this project will benefit the rural and isolated communities relying heavily on small water supply systems, which are typically more vulnerable to a natural disaster and a changing environment. Water sanitation will reduce the transmission of faceco-oral diseases and exposure to disease-bearing vectors to help disaster relief.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.