When
Monday, September 21, 2026, at 10:00 a.m.
Joseph Hoover
Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental Science
University of Arizona
"Community Engaged Water Quality Investigations with Tribal Communities"
Harshbarger 118A-A1
ABSTRACT
Unregulated water sources are common across the United States; these groundwater wells and springs are not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act but remain important water resources for communities. Tribal nations in the Southwest United States, such as the Navajo Nation, are confronting climate change-driven water resource perturbations and legacy environmental challenges owing to historical resource extraction. In this talk, I will illustrate a multipronged, community engaged approach to address groundwater contamination issues in partnership with Tribal nations. A foundational understanding of the geospatial patterns of groundwater contaminants is essential for informing resource management and treatment discussions across scales. Our team has created spatial data products to harmonize and predict groundwater concentrations for communities across the Colorado Plateau using machine learning algorithms and spatial statistics. Findings to date indicate arsenic and uranium groundwater concentrations at levels of concern for human health and livestock. At the community level we are conducting a multi-year sampling campaign to evaluate spatial and temporal variability of groundwater characteristics. By working alongside community partners, we have created space to disseminate and discuss the implications of study findings. Collectively, this work aims to provide actionable data to inform community discussions about future water resource use and potential treatment options within the context of a changing climate.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Joseph Hoover is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science and core-faculty affiliate of the Indigenous Resilience Center at the University of Arizona. Hoover earned a PhD in geography from the University of Denver and completed an IRACDA postdoctoral fellowship at the University of New Mexico. He is a trained geographer with a specialization in geospatial modeling and Indigenous environmental health. As a geographer, he approaches community-based research from an interdisciplinary perspective that incorporates digital technologies with qualitative and quantitative methods. His current research combines community engaged research with geospatial technologies, geographic information systems (GIS) technology and spatial statistics, to investigate environmental health issues in rural, underserved communities. He co-directs the University of New Mexico Center for Native Environmental Health Research and the University of Arizona Southwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health, and he is the community engagement core lead for the University of Arizona Superfund Research Center.