Document Type

Grant

Project Title

Evaluating Groundwater Vulnerability in a Rapidly Urbanizing City: Implications for Cholera and Dysentery Outbreaks

Principal Investigator

Samuel Mutiti

Publication Date

2028

College or Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Funder

GCSU

Award Date Range

Spring 2025

Award Amount

4998

Abstract

Many regions in the world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, continue to face the challenge of reliable access to safe drinking water. This project aims to investigate drinking water quality, focusing on groundwater from both planned and peri-urban residential neighborhoods, as well as the geological and hydrogeological factors contributing to groundwater vulnerability in Lusaka, Zambia. This study will examine several key water quality parameters including microplastics, pathogen contamination (E. coli, total coliforms, Vibrio cholera, E. histolytica, Shigella, Salmonella and Campylobacter), nitrate concentrations, and metals, all of which are common contaminants that can have adverse health effects and negatively affect aquatic ecosystems when released into the environment. This project will provide insights into how different factors, including geology, pumping, and land use, affect groundwater quality in Lusaka. Knowledge gained from this study will help increase our understanding of the impacts of having so many homes with private pumping wells and onsite sanitation systems on the groundwater quality. It will also increase our knowledge of the connections between surface plastic pollution with groundwater microplastic contaminations. It will also help answer questions on the role of karst geology in the combined transport of microplastic and pathogen in drinking groundwater. In addition, the models developed in this project will form a basis for future model development that can be used to predict cholera outbreaks in Luska and other places. This knowledge will be very helpful for the people who are mostly consuming groundwater from their private wells without treatment.

Download

Share

COinS