{"id":21023,"date":"2024-12-06T13:35:47","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T18:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=21023"},"modified":"2025-01-06T12:39:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T17:39:27","slug":"testing-the-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2024\/12\/testing-the-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Testing the Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Tubing<\/a>\n

When Noor Hamdan was a child, she not only collected wildflower bouquets to present to her mother, but she also researched their scientific names and cataloged the specimens in a book that still sits on her bookshelf today.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in nature is my favorite thing in the world,\u201d says Hamdan, a PhD candidate in the lab of Carsten Prasse<\/a>, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So she jumped at the opportunity to collaborate on a study Prasse proposed, which was aimed at exploring the impact that recreational activities, specifically floating down a river on an inner tube, might have on water quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really were interested in what the tubers themselves were bringing into the streams compared to what was already naturally present,\u201d says Hamdan. Such questions are timely, given concerns around climate change, hotter summers, and dropping water levels.<\/p>\n

Working with researchers at the Colorado School of Mines, the team examined water samples collected from Clear Creek, in Colorado, over a busy Labor Day weekend, and then several days later, when river traffic was slow. The team also collected samples upstream of the main \u201cput-in\u201d point for tubers. Sampling varied by time and location so the researchers could isolate the effects of the heavy activity in that popular spot.<\/p>\n

The researchers analyzed the samples using a mass spectrometer, which measures the masses of carbon-containing molecules with very high precision, creating \u201cchemical fingerprints\u201d that can be matched to a library of known substances.<\/p>\n

\"Noor<\/a>
Noor Hamdan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hamdan says many of the chemicals they found in samples from the put-in spot during high-traffic times are assumed to have washed off human skin or been excreted in urine: chemical sunscreens, prescription and over-the-counter medications, DEET bug repellant, and personal hygiene products\u2014even traces of cocaine. The control samples had little or no traces of these substances.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now know that these compounds are in the river,\u201d says Hamdan. Their results appeared in ACS ES&T Water<\/em><\/a>. \u201c[While] we don\u2019t know their concentrations or how they impact the fish or other species in the environment, this kind of work is mostly used to bring to light gaps in research knowledge related to recreational activities in freshwater systems with frequent use [by humans].\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that she knows what\u2019s floating around in popular recreational waterways, Hamdan said she\u2019s not going tubing anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis research has definitely opened my eyes to a lot of different chemicals that I use in my day-to-day life,\u201d she says, \u201cand which products I\u2019m more likely to use,\u201d such as mineral sunscreens, which are less toxic for the environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noor Hamdan explored the impact that recreational activities, specifically floating down a river on an inner tube, might have on water quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":21209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-students","issue-winter-2025"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTesting the Water - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Working with researchers at the Colorado School of Mines, the team examined water samples collected from Clear Creek, in Colorado, over a busy Labor Day weekend, and then several days later.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2024\/12\/testing-the-water\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Testing the Water - 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