Editor’s Message: Impact of politics on USA water quality monitoring, protection and management

Excerpt

The interaction between humans and natural hydrological systems is of great interest to hydrogeologists, with ~40 articles published on this topic in Hydrogeology Journal in 2017 alone. Much of this work involves the monitoring of these systems at various temporal and spatial scales. It is obvious to hydrogeologists and hopefully to water resource managers that the monitoring of known pollutants is essential for maintaining the health of those consuming this essential resource. Additionally, for natural ecosystems, monitoring helps expose detrimental human impacts and hopefully offers approaches to their remediation. We expect that the information hydrogeologists provide will be incorporated into public policy resulting in the provision of a reliable and clean water supply to our population and reliant ecosystems. However, examples such as high lead concentrations found at Flint, Michigan (USA), and pollution of groundwater resulting from the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) show this is not always the case. These cases were a direct result of lack of attention paid to water monitoring. …