Analysis of water quality is integral to identifying safe sources of drinking water, increasing awareness of water issues, and addressing sources of contamination. Micropollutant testing requires expensive instrumentation located in centralized state government labs, but the connection between rural local labs and state labs is often nonfunctional due to the requirement of collecting and transporting large volumes of water.

We aim to prototype and field-test a new technology to enable water samples to be preserved in a dry, compact form suitable for storage and shipping from local to state laboratory, thereby facilitating monitoring of micropollutants from rural water sources. Through effective use of centralized high-throughput analysis, we envision this approach will facilitate inclusion of important, but difficult-to-monitor pollutants in the overall water management scheme, guiding appropriate choice of drinking water sources and aiding in enforcement of industrial discharge regulations.