Groundwater Protection, Risk Awareness, Knowledge Transfer and Public Health: The Role of “Future Custodians”

A survey of young adults was conducted at several 3rd level agricultural institutions across Ireland over a 6-month period. The results from the agri-student survey were compared and contrasted with those of an identical survey of private well owners. Students (n = 246) scored significantly lower than well owners (n = 245) in two developed metrics, namely “groundwater source awareness” and “groundwater contamination awareness” (p < 0.001). Future “environmental custodians” are not well informed of the human health risks associated with poor groundwater management or of potential amelioration procedures. For example, just 7 % of young respondents exhibited an awareness of the purpose or presence of a sanitary seal; while only 17.5 % were aware of the presence or purpose of a well liner. Results suggest that neither intergenerational nor institutional knowledge transfer pertaining to groundwater protection or drinking water quality is prevalent. A Bayesian clustering method identified four distinct “awareness groups” within an amalgamated dataset (n = 476). Clusters comprised four predictors: presence of an elderly householder (predictor importance = 0.91), residence within the household during well design (predictor importance = 0.55), presence of an infant or young child (≤5 years) in the household (predictor importance = 0.48) previous instance of gastrointestinal illness or symptoms within the household (predictor importance = 0.31) The results of this research may be used to inform future risk management, communication and knowledge transfer policies, which are currently required to ensure the safeguarding of private groundwater supplies both in Ireland and further afield.