Statistical Mapping of PFOA and PFOS in Groundwater throughout the Contiguous United States

Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals that are increasingly being detected in groundwater. The negative health consequences associated with human exposure to PFAS make it essential to quantify the distribution of PFAS in groundwater systems. Mapping PFAS distributions is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2024-11, Vol.58 (44), p.19843-19850
Main Authors: Park, Bumjun, Kang, Hyunseung, Zahasky, Christopher
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Data analysis
Datasets
Environmental Monitoring
Fluorocarbons - analysis
Groundwater
Groundwater - chemistry
Humans
Mapping
Occurrence, Fate, and Transport of Aquatic and Terrestrial Contaminants
Perfluoroalkyl & polyfluoroalkyl substances
Perfluorochemicals
Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid
Perfluorooctanoic acid
Statistical analysis
Statistical models
United States
Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis
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Summary:Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals that are increasingly being detected in groundwater. The negative health consequences associated with human exposure to PFAS make it essential to quantify the distribution of PFAS in groundwater systems. Mapping PFAS distributions is particularly challenging because a national patchwork of testing and reporting requirements has resulted in sparse and spatially biased data. In this analysis, an inhomogeneous Poisson process (IPP) modeling approach is adopted from ecological statistics to continuously map PFAS distributions in groundwater across the contiguous United States. The model is trained on a unique data set of 8910 PFAS groundwater measurements, using combined concentrations of two PFAS analytes. The IPP model predictions are compared with results from random forest models to highlight the robustness of this statistical modeling approach on sparse data sets. This analysis provides a new approach to not only map PFAS contamination in groundwater but also prioritize future sampling efforts.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.4c05616