A significant body of applied water research is already completed, underway, or planned by the Water Center.
Water Center Projects
Supporting generation of the necessary political will for integrated water resource management. Key strategies include expanding support beyond a small group of highly sophisticated stakeholders deeply engaged in current challenges along the Three Rivers Watershed, to engage the larger community – from the urban core to rural stakeholders and building, leveraging and expanding upon the many successful local initiatives already under way.
The City of Philadelphia adopted the innovative Green City Clean Waters (GCCW) plan in 2011 to address combined sewer overflows by creating 9000+ acres of Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) to capture 85% of baseline annual wet weather flow into the sewer system.
Since 2011, additional positive impacts of GCCW include a significant number of new jobs, $60 million added to local economies, and the environmental, social and health benefits of green space. In addition, GSI was found to be more affordable for ratepayers and less energy intensive than gray infrastructure.
Despite these… Read More
Produce a strategy document for the transformation of New Jersey’s Water Infrastructure, with the goal of opening a new dialogue with regional and national stakeholders on the costs, needs and approaches to solving New Jersey’s water infrastructure crisis.
Many small to medium-sized cities across the Great Lakes region are challenged with providing affordable water service for their residents. This project aims to assist those cities through the implementation of a virtual Water Affordability Academy, which highlights peer cities that have successfully managed water affordability challenges, thus demonstrating that water affordability is critical, reasonable, and achievable. Additionally, these workshops connect utility leaders with some of the country’s most respected utility innovators to help them identify, assess, and establish a path… Read More
Explore innovative regional financing solutions designed to encourage new stormwater utilities (and associated fees) and identify novel approaches for bringing new financial resources to bear in the protection and restoration of Delaware River waterways. Create a tool kit of financing options for water policy and program managers to draw from and examine the case for considering regional models in watershed management. Propose four innovative financial mechanisms that to date have only been gently probed, but are worthy of much deeper feasibility analysis.