Water quality
Flood maps flag contaminated private wells
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
After Hurricane Florence, 41.2% of tested wells had total coliform and 11.7% E. coli—1.2× and 7.8× routine rates—with higher contamination inside flood boundaries.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Post–Hurricane Florence private-well tests overlaid on FEMA/HAND/DFO inundation maps
- N
- N=754 · 754 well samples after Florence included after exclusions
- Population
- Private wells in FEMA-designated North Carolina counties after Hurricane Florence
- Outcome
- Total coliform and E. coli positivity inside vs outside flood inundation extents
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Key findings
About 20.7% of 2.5 million FEMA-county residents (518,000 people) used private wells. Inside vs outside flood boundaries, contamination was up to 1.2× (TC) and 10.9× (EC) higher, but products disagreed (TC 40.8–53.1%; EC 10.5–16.3%) and no map caught all positives. The 100-year floodplain was 2.9–7.9× larger than HAND/DFO.
Methodology
North Carolina private-well tests after Florence were overlaid on FEMA 100-year, HAND, and DFO inundation extents to compare TC/EC positivity inside vs outside each flood product.
Limitations
Testing was not a complete census of wells; people who test after disasters are a selected sample, so rates may not equal true population risk.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
This library holds 6 empirical papers on water quality with measured outcomes rather than reviews.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
After Hurricane Florence, 41.2% of tested wells had total coliform and 11.7% E. coli—1.2× and 7.8× routine rates—with higher contamination inside flood boundaries.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
A flood-associated well study or a wastewater reactor is not a national drinking-water standard.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
A flood-associated well study or a wastewater reactor is not a national drinking-water standard.
- Supports · Nontarget LC-HRMS maps Dhaka river pollution
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