A changing microbiome
A trio of NYU Tandon professors is studying the ramifications of urban flooding
FOCUS of the MONTH Posted:January 31, 2020
纽约大学坦顿分校的三位教授正在研究城市水灾的后果
A group of NYU Tandon researchers is studying how urban flooding changes the microbial community of urban surfaces with a focus on human health considerations, specifically determining how long sewage pathogens may stay viable after a flood event.
纽约大学坦顿分校的一组研究人员正在研究城市洪水如何改变城市表面的微生物群落，重点放在人类健康方面，特别是确定洪水事件后污水病原体存活的时间。
It might seem like the first chapter of a dystopian novel: climate change causes sea levels to rise. High-intensity storms pummel the city. Drainage systems are overwhelmed and sewage floods streets and homes, carrying with it an assortment of disease-causing bacteria and viruses.
这似乎是反乌托邦小说的第一章：气候变化导致海平面上升。强风暴袭击了这座城市。排水系统不堪重负，污水淹没了街道和房屋，带来了各种致病细菌和病毒。
Dystopian scenarios aside, of the myriad impacts predicted to accompany climate change, flooding is, in fact, expected to have an outsized influence on public health and infrastructure in urban areas. Urban flood water does, indeed, contain a diverse array of contaminants, including industrial and household chemicals, fuels, and pathogen-ridden sewage — all of which can be deposited on flooded surfaces, presenting exposure risks even after flood waters have receded.
撇开反乌托邦的设想不谈，在伴随气候变化而来的无数影响中，洪水事实上预计将对城市地区的公共卫生和基础设施产生巨大影响。城市洪水确实含有各种各样的污染物，包括工业和家庭化学品、燃料和充满病原体的污水——所有这些污染物都可能沉积在被洪水淹没的表面，即使在洪水退去之后，也存在暴露风险。
A group of NYU Tandon researchers is now studying how urban flooding changes the microbial community of urban surfaces, investigating the ways in which the resulting microbial fingerprint evolves over time after a flood event, and determining how long it takes for the community to return to a pre-flood profile. With cities now home to more than half of the world’s population — an estimated four billion people — and that number only increasing, their research has enormous significance.
纽约大学坦顿分校的一组研究人员目前正在研究城市洪水如何改变城市表面的微生物群落，调查洪水事件后，由此产生的微生物指纹随时间演变的方式，并确定该群落恢复到洪水前的剖面需要多长时间。由于城市现在拥有世界一半以上的人口——估计有40亿人口——而且这个数字只是在增加，因此他们的研究具有巨大的意义。
The three researchers — Assistant Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering Andrea Silverman, who has a joint appointment at NYU’s College of Global Public Health; Assistant Professor of Technology, Culture and Society Elizabeth Hénaff; and Assistant Industry Professor of Technology, Culture and Society Tega Brain — garnered a seed grant last year from NYU’s Marron Institute, which is dedicated to helping cities tackle the critical challenges facing them.
这三位研究人员分别是纽约大学全球公共卫生学院土木与城市工程助理教授安德里亚·西尔弗曼、技术、文化与社会助理教授伊丽莎白·赫纳夫和工业技术助理教授，文化与社会Tega Brain-去年从纽约大学Marron研究所获得了种子基金，该研究所致力于帮助城市应对面临的严峻挑战。
Although the researchers approach the topic from varying viewpoints, they each have deep experience with water systems and microbes. Hénaff, who holds degrees in computer science, plant biology, and bioinformatics, studies the ubiquitous and invisible microbial component of our environment, while Silverman, a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, has focused on developing sustainable and appropriate wastewater treatment systems, including those using natural disinfection methods, and Brain is an environmental engineer who specializes in water-sensitive urban design. Researchers from Tandon's Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) are also slated to participate, and this past summer, high school students from the NYU Tandon Center for K12 Education's ARISE (Applied Research Innovations in Science and Engineering) program pitched in.
尽管研究人员从不同的角度探讨这个问题，但他们都对水系统和微生物有着深刻的经验。Hénaff拥有计算机科学、植物生物学和生物信息学的学位，他研究我们环境中无处不在和看不见的微生物成分，而Silverman，最近获得了国家科学基金会职业奖，他专注于开发可持续和适当的废水处理系统，包括那些使用自然消毒方法，是一位专门从事水敏感城市设计的环境工程师。来自坦顿城市科学与进步中心（CUSP）的研究人员也将参加，去年夏天，来自纽约大学坦顿K12教育中心（科学与工程应用研究创新）项目的高中生也将参加。
The Marron grant-winning research, “The Impact of Flooding on the Urban Microbiome and City Residents’ Exposure to Sewage Pathogens,” is focused on the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, site of the Gowanus Canal; once a hub for manufacturing and shipping, the area became so heavily polluted that the Environmental Protection Agency designated the Canal a Superfund site in 2008.
Marron grant获奖的研究“洪水对城市微生物群和城市居民接触污水病原体的影响”主要集中在Gowanus运河所在地布鲁克林的Gowanus社区；该地区曾经是制造业和航运业的中心，污染严重，环境保护局指定运河是2008年的超级基金。
The researchers explain that they are developing methodologies for monitoring, sampling, and analysis, thus establishing a set of standard operating procedures and pre-flood baseline data. They will then be prepared to rapidly deploy these methods after a flooding event and have benchmarks for comparison to post-flood data. They’re happy to be working in Gowanus. “We have established relationships with community organizations there and access to community-maintained and city-issued maps of known regular flooding locations,” they explain. “Furthermore, the site is near NYU Tandon so we can get there quickly after a flood. Most importantly, similar to the Gowanus neighborhood, many urban areas contain low-lying areas that are prone to flooding with a combination of stormwater and sewage, so we expect to gather broadly applicable data from our case study.”
研究人员解释说，他们正在开发监测、取样和分析方法，从而建立一套标准操作程序和洪水前基线数据。然后，他们将准备在洪水事件发生后迅速部署这些方法，并有与洪水后数据进行比较的基准。他们很高兴在戈瓦努斯工作。他们解释说：“我们已经与当地的社区组织建立了关系，并获得了社区维护和城市发布的已知定期洪水位置地图。”。“此外，该地点靠近NYU Tandon，因此洪水过后我们可以很快到达那里。最重要的是，与戈瓦努斯社区类似，许多城市地区都有低洼地区，这些地区容易被雨水和污水淹没，因此我们希望从我们的案例研究中收集广泛适用的数据。”
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