# Dynamic exposure pathways under conditions of environmental emergencies

> **NIH NIH P42** · TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $220,880

## Abstract

Project 1 ABSTRACT
The proposed Texas A&M University Superfund Research Center aims to mitigate human exposure to
hazardous substances, specifically exposure to mixtures of contaminants that are redistributed by manmade or
natural environmental disasters. Project 1 will investigate the redistribution of contaminated sediments from
both soils and marine sediments as a consequence of natural disasters such as floods and storms. Changing
climate, human-induced land subsidence, and rising sea levels have increased the vulnerability of coastal
areas to environmental disasters worldwide. The proposed Center is focused on the Galveston Bay and
Houston Ship Channel (GB/HSC), an area where our group has had decades of experience analyzing
sediments, tissues of marine organisms, and water samples for legacy contaminants. The GB/HSC area
includes the 4th largest metropolitan city in the US and is located near one of the most contaminated
marine/coastal areas, with 22 listed or proposed Superfund sites. The area is prone to environmental disasters
such as floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes; large storms may redistribute contaminants that are currently
bound to sediments throughout the marine area and cause widespread land deposition of contaminants via
storm surge and flooding. Our expertise forms a solid foundation to test our central hypothesis that
characterizing current sediment and soil contaminant levels, sediment transport, redistribution, and
transformation caused by extreme weather emergency events will identify exposure pathways of complex
contaminated mixtures and inform methods to predict, respond to, and mitigate these exposures to protect the
health of affected populations. Project 1 is critical to the overall Center as it will determine contaminant loading
of marine sediments from historical data and new chemical analyses, establish the current background of
contaminants in the soils of key areas identified by local communities, and collect and analyze samples before
and after storm events. We will work with the Community Engagement Core to determine areas of concern to
communities and then sample soils from land and marine sediments. We will also obtain already collected
samples from a wide network of State and Federal government collaborators, and analyze all samples for
hazardous contaminants of concern to Superfund. Through laboratory studies, we will determine the potential
transformation of compounds in sediments as they are transported to land. Furthermore, we will develop
predictive hurricane and flood models to determine the extent of hazardous contaminant mobilization during
environmental emergencies. These models will be adaptable to other areas in the US and worldwide where
similar concerns exist with respect to environmental emergencies that involve possible redistribution of
sediments contaminated with hazardous chemicals. Working with the Exposure Science Core, Project 1 will
perform targeted and non-targeted analyses of co...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9903369
- **Project number:** 5P42ES027704-04
- **Recipient organization:** TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Anthony Knap
- **Activity code:** P42 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $220,880
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9903369

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9903369, Dynamic exposure pathways under conditions of environmental emergencies (5P42ES027704-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9903369. Licensed CC0.

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