IRES Track 1: Convergent research to support provision of safe water in eastern coastal Madagascar

Both within the U.S. and throughout the rest of the world, people often lack access to a safe, reliable supply of publicly provided drinking water. In the U.S., this may result from natural disasters or temporary failures in infrastructure, such as Hurricane María in Puerto Rico in 2017 or the Texas power crisis in 2021, both which deprived U.S. citizens from access to safe water for days, weeks, or months.

In many other parts of the world, lack of access to safe water may be a regular part of life. In such contexts, people may be forced to periodically gather non-potable water, to treat it themselves to improve its quality and safety, and then to store the treated water within their homes. However, an important challenge is that it is not clear what practices should be employed for treating and storing water to minimize health risks.

For instance, in Madagascar, water is commonly acquired from decentralized sources and then treated at the point of use (e.g., the household) to improve its safety. In this project, cohorts of U.S. students from the University of South Florida (USF) will travel to Toamasina, Madagascar, to conduct research in support of providing safe water via point-of-use treatment and sound storage practices.

The project is motivated by three sets of overlapping and complementary driving objectives: (1) to advance disciplinary knowledge in the convergent fields of environmental engineering and social/behavioral sciences (social psychology/social marketing); (2) to develop global skills and competencies in a cohort of U.S. students in support of a globally competitive U.S. workforce; and (3) to contribute to the provision of safe water in a water-stressed area in eastern coastal Madagascar. Although the immediate results of this project’s research will most directly benefit the populace of Toamasina, those results are likely to apply to a broad array of settings (both domestic and worldwide) where point-of-use disinfection of water is deployed and where water is stored with or without point-of-use disinfection.

During each year of this 3-year project, 5 U.S. students (four undergraduates or early graduate students, plus one PhD student or candidate) will travel to Madagascar for a period of 7 weeks during the summer. In Madagascar, students will be mentored by the President and Vice President of Ranontsika, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that that aims to improve public health by promoting access to high-quality drinking water through a social business service franchise model.

USF and Ranonstika have a successful existing partnership, and we have previously collaborated on several important initiatives related to the presence of lead (Pb) in household water in Toamasina. The intellectual merit of this project derives from the completion of convergent research in the complementary disciplines of environmental engineering and social psychology (social marketing).

Environmental engineering students will (a) develop methods/procedures for estimating proper chlorine dose for point-of-use disinfection of potable water in an environment with widely varying raw water quality, and (b) develop methods/procedures for controlling bacterial re-contamination in household water storage containers (with particular emphasis on households not practicing point-of-use disinfection). Simultaneously, social/behavioral sciences students will use social marketing to understand the local community’s knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to point-of-use disinfection and household storage, including the importance the community places on specific products and techniques, where they seek information, and when/how/why they employ particular practices.

Results from these two complementary lines of research will be combined to develop a strategy that encourages or modifies behaviors to maximize water safety. Broader impacts of this project will include the development of global competencies and skills within the cohort of students who conduct research in an international setting. In this project, by partnering with an NGO that is based on a unique business model, students will observe alternative models for successful enterprises in low-income countries.

The work proposed here will strengthen an existing partnership between USF and Ranontsika, and will expand our collaborative research portfolio by investigating disinfection and microbiological quality of water as well as Pb contamination of household water.

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.