When it comes to water, Lauren Smitherman doesn’t mind getting a little personal. As a graduate student in Water Resources Science at Oregon State University, she asked people in rural Oregon for permission to collect samples of their drinking water. Assured of confidentiality, most people welcomed her into their kitchens where Smitherman ran a stream of cold water from their faucets for a few minutes before filling a plastic bottle.
Thousands of wells in Bangladesh are contaminated with arsenic from groundwater aquifers. Oregon State University researchers are studying the health consequences of low-dose exposure in rural communities.
Working with OSU Professor Aaron Wolf, an international expert on water conflict resolution, Jennifer Veilleux was investigating the human dimensions of the dam’s development and, more broadly, the complex intertwining among peoples and waters the world over.
Fighting a war of independence should be turmoil enough for a small country, but in 1970, the people of Bangladesh also had to deal with a deadly cholera outbreak.