Contaminated Sites, Natural Disasters, Changing Environmental Conditions and Vulnerable Communities: Research to Build Resilience

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is asking the scientific community to propose transdisciplinary research with an approach that integrates the following research questions: (1) How may certain natural disasters (e.g., wildfires, severe storms, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes or tsunamis) or changing environmental conditions (e.g., rising sea levels, higher average temperature or heat index) cause specific chemical contaminants to migrate from certain contaminated or containment sites (e.g., hazardous waste sites, landfills, solid waste or wastewater storage or treatment facilities, industrial sites such as mines or refineries) to nearby communities and pose elevated exposure risks to vulnerable groups, especially the elderly and/or children under the age of five years? (2) What are the major contributing factors or effect modifiers, in addition to the contaminants and natural disasters or changing environmental conditions, that may exacerbate the impacts to these vulnerable groups in impacted communities? and (3) How can scientific research results specifically help communities build better resilience against the problems and issues identified above?

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