A social-ecological analysis of drinking water risks in coastal Bangladesh.

Groundwater resources in deltaic regions are vulnerable to contamination by saline seawater, posing significant crisis for drinking water. Current policy and practice of building water supply infrastructure, without adequate hydrogeological analysis and institutional coordination are failing to provide basic drinking water services for millions of poor people in such difficult hydrogeological contexts. We apply a social-ecological systems approach to examine interdisciplinary data from hydrogeological mapping, a water infrastructure audit, 2103 household surveys, focus group discussions and interviews to evaluate the risks to drinking water security in one of 139 polders in coastal Bangladesh.

Risks and responses to universal drinking water security.

Risks to universal drinking water security are accelerating due to rapid demographic, climate and economic change. Policy responses are slow, uneven and largely inadequate to address the nature and scale of the global challenges. The challenges relate both to maintaining water security in increasingly fragile supply systems and to accelerating reliable access to the hundreds of millions who remain water-insecure.

Scattered ultraviolet emissions during refractive surgery using a high-frequency, wavefront-optimized excimer laser platform.

Purpose: To evaluate occupational ultraviolet (UV) exposure during photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) with the Allegretto Wave Eye-Q 400 Hz excimer laser.

Setting: Walter Reed Center for Refractive Surgery, Washington, DC, USA.

Methods: Intraoperative UV measurements were performed during PRK with epithelial removal using an Amoils brush, PRK with epithelial removal using 20% ethanol, or femtosecond LASIK.