2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

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5/25/2021  |   2:00 PM - 3:30 PM   |  How We Talk About Water: The role of discourse in how communities understand the impacts of ambient water quality   |  Virtual Platform

How We Talk About Water: The role of discourse in how communities understand the impacts of ambient water quality

Water is fundamental to sustaining all life, and access to clean water has been the focus of many environmental justice concerns and studies. While critically important, this attention has centered on drinking water quality and access, at the expense of ambient surface waters (e.g. water before the tap). Additionally, most environmental justice studies come from community-driven initiatives, potentially precluding analyses in areas that may be less aware of their environmental conditions. Building on a previous spatial analysis of environmental justice in ambient waters, we quantitatively determined two environmental justice hot spots to analyze and compare as case studies. These case studies, from two different socio-political, economic, and ecological regions of North Carolina, demonstrate the (mis)alignment between material and discursive impacts of poor ambient water quality on human and non-human populations. Results from our case studies suggest that many communities are unaware of the conditions of their ambient water quality until catastrophic issues occur or are uncovered; of how poor ambient water quality can degrade local human livelihoods through ecological impacts; or that communities may be more vocal about potential future water quality issues (i.e. proposed pipeline developments) than current conditions.

  • Socio-ecological systems
  • Pollution
  • Monitoring

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Presenters/Authors

Mitchell Owens (), Indiana University - Bloomington , owensm42@gmail.com;


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Helen Rosko (), Clark University, hmrosko@gmail.com;


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Justine Neville (), North Carolina State University, janevill@ncsu.edu;


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Jacyln Guz (), Clark University, JGuz@Clarku.edu;


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