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Surface waters in socially vulnerable areas are disproportionately under-monitored for nutrients in the US South Atlantic-Gulf region

Nature Water volume 3, pages 831–840 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

This study investigates whether active water quality monitoring stations are proportionately distributed across communities of varying social vulnerability. We specifically focus on nutrient monitoring of surface waters in the South Atlantic-Gulf region, a water-rich area with wide-ranging land uses and communities that span the social vulnerability spectrum. We used 2018–2022 data from the US Water Quality Portal to compare station locations to metrics from the US Centers for Disease Control Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and hydrography from the US Geological Survey. Statistical analyses revealed a substantial imbalance in the distribution of active monitoring station placements, with more monitoring stations in lower vulnerability areas and fewer in high vulnerability areas, and patterns that vary by state. Stations were clustered in areas of similar SVI values; areas were less likely to be monitored if they were near tracts with differing SVI values.

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Fig. 1: Overview of SVI values and monitoring.
Fig. 2: Monitoring station density.
Fig. 3: Monitoring across SVI deciles.
Fig. 4: State-level monitoring comparisons.
Fig. 5: SVI distribution by monitoring status.
Fig. 6: SVI-based clustering of monitoring stations.

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Data availability

All geospatial data used in our analyses are freely available online from various US government and state agencies and bureaus. The 2022 version of the SVI was used51. The locations of nutrient monitoring water quality stations were downloaded from the US Water Quality Portal45. Hydrography (water body polygons and polylines) data were downloaded from the USGS Best Resolution National Hydrography Dataset via The National Map Download46. Hydrography data were downloaded at the state scale for each of the 9 states in the South Atlantic-Gulf region and clipped using the U.S. Geological Survey Watershed Boundary Dataset, which was also downloaded from The National Map Download. The datasets used in this analysis were the most recent versions as of December 2023, as these datasets are constantly updated. Census tract rurality data were downloaded from the US Health Resources and Services Administration Federal Office of Rural Health Policy29. The rurality data are from 2023 and represent the most recent collection of census-tract-scale rurality data. State boundary shapefiles were downloaded from the US Census Bureau MAF/TIGER geographic database52. The state boundary shapefiles used in our analyses were from 2018 and were at the 1:500,000 scale. The datasets generated for this study are available via Dryad at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7d7wm3858 (ref. 53).

Code availability

All code used for analysis is available via Dryad at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7d7wm3858 (ref. 53).

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge support for this work provided by the Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability (STEPS) Center, funded by the US National Science Foundation (grant no. CBET-2019435). C.C.O., K.G. and N.G.N. were supported by the STEPS Center. We also acknowledge USDA NIFA Hatch projects (accession number 7003378, multistate project S1089; and research project number 7009573, associated with N.G.N. and K.G.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Christopher C. Oates & Natalie G. Nelson

  2. North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Christopher C. Oates, Khara Grieger & Natalie G. Nelson

  3. Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Khara Grieger

  4. Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Ryan Emanuel

  5. Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Natalie G. Nelson

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  1. Christopher C. Oates
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  4. Natalie G. Nelson
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Contributions

K.G. and N.G.N. obtained the funding for the project. C.C.O. and N.G.N. designed the study. N.G.N. supervised the study. C.C.O. conducted the data analysis and prepared the figures. C.C.O., K.G., R.E. and N.G.N. drafted, reviewed and finalized the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Khara Grieger or Natalie G. Nelson.

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Oates, C.C., Grieger, K., Emanuel, R. et al. Surface waters in socially vulnerable areas are disproportionately under-monitored for nutrients in the US South Atlantic-Gulf region. Nat Water 3, 831–840 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-025-00460-5

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