Social dilemmas and poor water quality in household water systems

Penny, Gopal; Bolster, Diogo; Müller, Marc F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1187-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1187-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1187-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 4

Research article

|

01 Mar 2022

Research article |

| 01 Mar 2022

Social dilemmas and poor water quality in household water systems

Gopal Penny, Diogo Bolster, and Marc F. Müller

Data sets

Domestic well locations and populations served in the contiguous U.S.: datasets for decadal years 2000 and 2010 T. Johnson and K. Belitz https://doi.org/10.5066/P9FSLU3B

St. Joseph County Zoning Boundaries SJCGIS https://sjcgis-stjocogis.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/zoning-boundaries

St. Joseph County Address SJCGIS https://sjcgis-stjocogis.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/address

Model code and software

v1.0.0 R package for social dilemmas and community groundwater contamination G. Penny https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4891996

Short summary

In residential areas with a high housing density, septic contamination of private wells raises multiple health concerns. Often, few regulations exist to ensure good water quality in such systems, and water quality is often left to the homeowner. To address the potential obstacles to effective management, we identify situations where misplaced economic incentives hinder effective policy to support water quality in such systems.