The WSU EFC developed Community Affordability Assessment Tools for all 445 rural communities in Nebraska and 745 rural communities in Missouri for the Nebraska DEQ and Missouri DNR. The projects involved an extensive national literature review to determine which factors effect rural population change. Those factors are then analyzed to determine which are applicable to Missouri and Nebraska. Once analysis was completed, the factors were then used to create pre-populated assessment tools for all the respective rural communities that includes data for 20 individual community data points. The tool’s output is a sustainability score for each community. The state agencies can use the community affordability assessment data and score to identify communities that will likely have challenges now or in the future paying for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements and develop innovative solutions. A report of the Missouri project is provided below. The tools and full reports are available by request to angela.buzard@wichita.edu
NE and MO Water Infrastructure Community Affordability Assessment Projects
Source: EFC at WSU