Water Resources Research Center awarded $500,000 grant

USDA grant to be used to study wastewater reuse

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Philip S. Moravcik, (808) 956-3097
Junior Specialist, Water Resources Research Center
Chittaranjan Ray, (808) 956-9652
Director, Water Resources Research Center
Posted: Feb 24, 2011

Interim director of UH Mānoa's Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) Chittaranjan Ray and Philip Moravcik of WRRC received a competitive $500,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to study the uptake of pharmaceutical compounds by edible plants under differing conditions of soil moisture stress.
 
Ray and Moravcik will be looking at pharmaceuticals typically found in treated wastewater. Radio-labeled compounds will be used to examine the uptake of these compounds by plants. The results will have implications for the increased reliance on wastewater to irrigate in places where the availability of other water is in decline.
 
Ray, who is also a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Moravcik are collaborating with Clinton Williams of the USDA Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Arizona. Comparative evaluations will be made between Hawaiʻi and Arizona conditions. 

Ray’s research focuses on chemical and pathogen transport in soils and ground water, water supply, and riverbank filtration.