Clean Water Through Technology-Enabled Citizen Science (2024-2025)
Many communities throughout the United States struggle with contaminated drinking water sources. One of the biggest issues with respect to drinking water contamination is lead.
This project team sought to eliminate many of the barriers to household lead water testing by developing a simple-to-use, in-home water sampler that can be used by both individual households to assess their water and community organizations to perform large-scale water sampling campaigns.
The team evaluated an existing water collection and testing prototype — HydroCapture — including end-user understanding and stakeholder mapping, usability testing, and creating an ethical implementation plan.
The team conducted semi-structured, in-context interviews with users of the device to develop a targeted set of engineering specifications as well as a holistic stakeholder interaction map. The team also performed usability and compatibility testing to ensure that HydroCapture can be effectively installed with minimal instructions and is compatible with most indoor water systems.
Finally, the team developed an ethical implementation plan. Given the historical inequities in access to clean water, it is critical to fully understand potential challenges in implementing the system in marginalized communities. The team strove to identify opportunities to implement potential solutions via novel, community-driven approaches.
Timing
Fall 2024 – Spring 2025
Team Outputs
Interview transcripts
End-user and stakeholder analysis report
Stakeholder map
Usability testing data set and report
Ethical implementation plan
Image: Drinking Water from the Faucet, by ACES | Margaret Barse, Alabama Extension, public domain