Partnership projects

The Kansas Water Institute is not limited to one campus, college, or university. Answering the most difficult water resource challenges means bringing all our resources and expertise together. That's why we support impactful water research throughout Kansas.

Wichita State University

Using probabilistic machine learning to enhance access to drinking water in Kansas

Securing drinking water accessibility is crucial to the intersection of public health, agriculture industry, and social justice in Kansas. However, aquifer depletion, aging water supply infrastructure, and emerging natural/man- made contaminants (such as uranium, nitrates, and PFAS) threaten drinking water accessibility. One of the key challenges is the lack of a reliable and accurate predictive tool to evaluate the negative impacts on drinking water accessibility in Kansas due to natural disasters and inadvertent behaviors. The lack of predictive tools potentially leads to poor decision making for resilient water management. To overcome this challenge, this research will work to fill the significant knowledge gap by developing a robust and accurate model using probabilistic machine leaning, while accurately and reliably predicting water contaminant levels during/after natural disasters.

Project leads:

Andrew Swindle, Department of Geology, Wichita State University

Gisuk Hwang, College of Engineering, Wichita State University

Xiaoheng Wang, Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs, Wichita State University

Fort Hays State University

Expanding water resource research and coordination

The scope of this support goes beyond a single project, but aims to support research and an institutional office responsible for initiating, coordinating, and assisting water-related projects that help FHSU support the Kansas Water Plan. This includes conducting contaminant testing of wells and surface water in rural western Kansas, evaluating the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in municipal wastewater from western Kansas communities, and upgrading structures used to house a collection of approximately 8000 specimens of freshwater mussels.

The new FHSU Water Office will be responsible for auditing campus water use, making recommendation for ways the university can improve its water use, developing community outreach and education, and assisting faculty and staff to identify and manage water-related research and service projects.