In a climate changed world, flooding is expected to have an outsized influence on public health and infrastructure in urban areas. With sea level rise and a greater frequency of high intensity precipitation events, city drainage systems will increasingly be overwhelmed resulting in urban flooding.(1) In New York City, for example, sea level rise has led to a dramatic increase in flood risk, particularly in low-lying and coastal neighborhoods.(2) Urban flood water contains a diverse array of contaminants, including industrial and household chemicals, fuels and sewage found in an urban environment.(3,4) These contaminants can be deposited on flooded surfaces, presenting exposure risks even after flood waters have receded. NYC’s combined sewer system – consisting of stormwater and municipal sewers combined in the same pipe – presents an additional challenge. During high intensity rain events, the large volume of water conveyed to these drains can lead to sewer backups and overflows into the streets and households of low lying areas.(5)
All environmental surfaces support microbial communities whose diversity and identities reflect the history of that environment, and different surfaces are able to support different communities due to surface properties and chemistry. Disruptions can change a community profile in ways that reflect the disruption itself. Very little metagenomic data exists on the impact of flooding on microbial communities. The little data that exists shows evidence of a shift in the microbial population in the aftermath of a flood, away from its stable population and towards a population that mirror the flood water.(6,7) This project investigates the changes to microbiome following a flood event, specifically considering the following questions:
- Does the microbial population on urban surfaces (e.g., sidewalk, soil, walls or floors of homes) shift to reflect the community of microorganisms in sewage and storm water?
- How do different surfaces affect the evolution of the microbial community in the aftermath of a flood?
- How does the the community fingerprint reflect the flood event? And, are there lingering health risks from sewage microorganisms after flood waters recede?
- What is the best methodology for collecting data?
Read more about the project here.
This work is supported by a Marron Institute Seed Grant Award.
References
1. US Global Change Research Center. Fourth National Climate Assessment. (2018).
2. Talke, S. A., Orton, P. & Jay, D. A. Increasing storm tides in New York Harbor, 1844–2013. Geophysical Research Letters 41, 3149–3155 (2014).
3. ten Veldhuis, J. A. E., Clemens, F. H. L. R., Sterk, G. & Berends, B. R. Microbial risks associated with exposure to pathogens in contaminated urban flood water. Water Research 44, 2910–2918 (2010).
4. Makepeace, D. K., Smith, D. W. & Stanley, S. J. Urban stormwater quality: Summary of contaminant data. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology 25, 93–139 (1995).
5. NYC Office of Emergency Management. NYC’s Risk Landscape: A Guide to Hazard Mitigation. (2014).
6. Afshinnekoo, E. et al. Geospatial Resolution of Human and Bacterial Diversity with City-Scale Metagenomics. cels 1, 72–87 (2015).
7. Garner, E. et al. Metagenomic profiling of historic Colorado Front Range flood impact on distribution of riverine antibiotic resistance genes. Scientific Reports 6, 38432 (2016).