Around the Water Cooler

Aug 1, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: Water Sustainability from Across the Globe

Around the Water Cooler, PUB, Singapore, Singapore Water Agency, sustainability, water conservation, WaterSense 2 Comments

By Sarah Blau

Something caught my eye in the ladies’ room of an out-of-the-way restaurant in a small North Carolina town where I spent my July 4^th weekend. Pictured in the upper right corner of the ceramic toilet tank was a little blue and green water droplet and the words WaterSense, which I recognized immediately.

WaterSense is EPA’s partnership program designed to protect the future of our nation’s water supply by offering people a simple way to use less water with water-efficient products – products bearing the token blue and green label. Despite being familiar with the program, I was still surprised to discover that small symbol of water conservation in such a rural area. I realized that water conservation (as well as many other water resource sustainability issues) is not limited to one city, to one state, or even to one country. Water resource protection is a global issue, affecting everyone, everywhere.

In fact, I recently learned that Singapore’s National Water Agency, PUB, has a water conservation plan with goals very similar to EPA’s WaterSense. According to PUB’s website, their conservation plan “encourages customers to use water wisely,” and as a result, “Singapore’s per capita domestic water consumption has been brought down from 165 litres per day in 2003 to the current 152 litres.”

David Adelman, U.S. Ambassador to Singapore (left), and Chew Men Leong, Chief Executive, PUB (right). Choi Shing Kwok (center), Singapore’s Permanent Secretary for the Environment and Water Resources served as official witness.

In recognition of the global prevalence of water resource issues and the commonality in water resource goals between the U.S. and Singapore, last month EPA entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with PUB. Signed by the Chief Executive of PUB, Chew Men Leong, and the U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, David Adelman, the MOU paves the way for international collaboration to advance scientific and technical knowledge on pressing water issues.

EPA and PUB are both working toward similar goals for sustainable water management such as providing safe water for the population, promoting industry water clusters (similar to the EPA-supported Confluence), and providing innovative water solutions, jobs, and economic growth. “This partnership will promote safer drinking water and better water resource management,” said Ambassador Adelman. “We’re excited to be a part of it.”

Likewise, I’m excited to hear about this partnership. What better way to confront global water resource concerns than with international collaboration? From the smallest backwoods homestead to the busiest urban business, in this country and across the globe, we share similar water sustainability concerns. So, the wider-spread the research team addressing these issues, the better off we, and our waters, will be.

About the Author: Sarah Blau is a student services contractor working on the Science Communications Team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

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Jul 24, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: Measure Runoff with EPA’s Stormwater Calculator

Around the Water Cooler, Green Infrastructure, impervious surface, Safe and Sustainable Water, Stormwater, stormwater calculator, stormwater runoff 4 Comments

By Lahne Mattas-Curry

It’s been raining for what seems like weeks straight this summer. Each day as I leave the office, it’s not unusual for the skies to open up and let loose a torrential downpour. I have watched many people struggle to find their umbrellas in their bags or skip over the water pooling around street corners while running to the metro. While Washington, D.C., is one of the most beautiful cities in the country, when it rains, you just can’t escape the water flowing rapidly across the pavement and other impervious surfaces that make up our nation’s capital. Interested in water research, I wondered, “How much water actually runs off into the Potomac and the Anacostia rivers during each rainfall?”

Now, thanks to EPA scientist Lew Rossman, we can measure runoff amounts for specific locations. After answering some questions about a particular site, such as percent of impervious surfaces and soil composition, Rossman’s National Stormwater Calculator can estimate the amount of runoff and inform decisions about how to reduce runoff. The Calculator is a tool that can help developers, urban planners, landscapers, and other professionals determine what green infrastructure elements could best reduce the runoff.

Adding green infrastructure (we’ve talked a lot about green infrastructure here and here) is both environmentally and economically beneficial. From trees and plants to green roofs, rain barrels, and cisterns, these changes can help decrease the amount of pollutants threatening our waterways. With heavy rains increasing and continued development, runoff has become one of the fastest growing sources of water pollution around the country.

The Calculator is just phase I of the Stormwater Calculator and Climate Assessment Tool package announced in the President’s Climate Action Plan in June. An update to the Calculator will be released at the end of this year that links to several future climate scenarios.

You can access the National Stormwater Calculator here: http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/swc/

About the Author: Lahne Mattas-Curry works with EPA’s Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Program and is a frequent “Around the Water Cooler” contributor. Besides playing in puddles after a rain, she spends a lot of time adding plants to her rain garden to reduce the runoff, and quite frankly, add beauty and value, to her own property.

Jul 22, 2013

EPA Wants Creative Solutions to a Common Problem

Around the Water Cooler, challenge, combined sewer overflow, innovation, Safe and Sustainable Water, sensors, sewer system 0 Comments

By Dustin Renwick

Flushing is the easy part. What happens in our sewer systems after that remains unseen, hidden in the aging network of millions of miles of underground pipes.

Sometimes the pipes overflow due to heavy rain and storms. In fact, the Cincinnati area’s combined sewer systems discharge about 16 billion gallons of raw sewage mixed with storm water in just one year. This gunk pollutes local streams and rivers, as we’ve explained before.

One problem in reducing stormwater overflows is a lack of real-time information. In many areas, sewage overflows require manual monitoring from local utilities. Meanwhile, some wireless sensors do exist, but their cost remains prohibitively high for wide use.

EPA has partnered with Cincinnati Innovates, the Cincinnati Metropolitan Sewer District, and the Northern Kentucky Sewer District 1 to launch a new challenge that calls for creative thinkers and fresh ideas.

The challenge will reward designs that create inexpensive, low-maintenance sensors to help monitor sewer overflows. This new generation of sensors would allow companies to improve their operational efficiency and meet sewer overflow requirements set by the Clean Water Act.

EPA will reward $10,000 for at least one submitted solution. The challenge closes Sept. 2.

Jul 11, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: Wastewater Treatment (nothing to scream about…)

Around the Water Cooler, CANARY, Clean Water, drinking water, EPA Water Research, Green Infrastructure, sewer overflow, Stormwater, stormwater runoff, Wastewater, water quality, Water Treatment 1 Comment

By Lahne Mattas-Curry

I came across this little gem the other day while working to promote EPA’s water science research. A sci-fi novel set in a wastewater treatment plant? Brilliant. And the tagline: Where no one cares when you scream? Clearly author Dodge Winston has a lot to think about while at work as a wastewater plant operator in the San Francisco Bay area. I’ll bet, though, that most of us haven’t given the wastewater treatment plant in our communities much thought, yet wastewater treatment is a key contributor to keeping us healthy and the environment clean.

Do you know what happens to the wastewater when you flush the toilet or run the disposal, or even finish a load of laundry? The wastewater collection system consists of a network of pipes, pumps, and tunnels that connect our household plumbing to sewer lines and pump stations. Eventually the wastewater is sent to the treatment plant for cleaning and distribution.

There are approximately 800,000 miles of public sewer lines in the United States, most installed after World War II. There are also close to 20,000 wastewater treatment pipe systems and 15,000 wastewater treatment facilities in the United States, most of them aging and certainly many that can’t handle a large storm without sending overflows of untreated wastewater into our waterways.

With this in mind, EPA engineers and scientists are developing tools, rehabilitation technologies and methods to increase long-term effectiveness of wastewater treatment systems. They also help municipalities and wastewater treatment plant staff keep our water clean, contributing to healthier people and a cleaner environment. EPA researchers are working to keep our water sources free from chemical, biological, and radiological contaminants, too.

Here are a few of the tools and models our researchers have developed:

While these technologies and tools are targeted to wastewater treatment plant operators, there are things you can do at home to help keep our water clean and reduce the cost of cleaning our water at the wastewater treatment plant. Learn more about what you can do in your community here.

And for fun, check out this innovative tool the city of Oberlin, Ohio is using. You can see real-time use of electricity and water.

As an aside, this tool was developed by Lucid Design Group, which was founded by members of Oberlin College’s P3 team that organized a two-week “Dorm Energy Competition” where dorm residents competed to reduce their energy and water use and used the dashboards to monitor success back in 2005. Today, Lucid has customers around the country, including towns, building owners, corporations – and even Google – who want to monitor and reduce energy and water consumption.

About the Author: Lahne Mattas-Curry is a frequent contributor to Around the Water Cooler, and she also helps promote the great work of EPA researchers in the Safe and Sustainable Water Resources program. And at lunch today she will drink about a gallon of clean, treated tap water.

Jun 21, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: Monitoring Drinking Water Systems

Around the Water Cooler, drinking water, EPA Homeland Security Research, EPA National Homeland Security Research Center, EPANET Real-Time eXtension, EPANET-RTX, homeland security, RTX, water, Water Infrastructure, water quality, water utility 2 Comments

By Robert Janke

A reliable source of clean, drinkable water is a must for any city or community to survive and prosper. We take for granted the clean, drinkable water delivered from the tap whenever we want to quench that thirst. But few people recognize or understand the complexity of our nation’s water system and what goes into the operations required to deliver this essential human need in an unfailing way, day in and day out.

As one of our nation’s critical infrastructures, water distribution systems face security threats ranging from natural disasters, like hurricanes and extreme weather, to intentional acts of sabotage or terrorism.

Obviously, it’s important to be able to quickly detect, assess, and respond to any kind of water contamination event no matter the source. But in order to do that, it is essential to have a real-time understanding of what is going on in the water distribution system. This would help water utilities be better prepared to respond to natural disasters or intentional acts of sabotage and could also alert them to other problems like leaks in the distribution system or water quality problems.

So how do we get a real-time understanding of water system operations? We integrate a utility’s infrastructure model with their real-time or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) data. We are testing and evaluating our real-time modeling software tools at the Northern Kentucky Water District (NKWD).

We are demonstrating how our real-time modeling software tools can be used to provide water utility operators with a better understanding of their water system and its operation. With our software tools, utility operators will have a “flight simulator” type of capability which will allow them to be better prepared to respond to emergencies and plan for the future.

To gain this understanding of the water system, we have developed an object-oriented software library called EPANET-RTX (EPANET “Real-Time eXtension”). RTX, for short, joins operational data from an already existing data system with an infrastructure model to improve operations and enhance security in a more sustainable and productive manner. RTX is built on the industry standard for distribution system modeling, EPANET, and leverages years of real-time modeling research and development efforts conducted by EPA.

RTX is open source software, and you can find it here. By making it open source, EPA hopes commercial companies will evaluate the technology and use it to develop commercial products. We will continue to develop the RTX libraries which the water community will be able to use to (1) help water utilities field verify (validate) their infrastructure models and (2) develop RTX-based applications. These RTX-based applications will enable water utilities to better manage, operate, and secure their water systems.

To learn more about EPA’s research to keep our water systems safe and secure, please visit: epa.gov/nhsrc.

About the Author: Robert Janke is a research scientist intent on making sure our water stays clean and drinkable. He works in EPA’s National Homeland Security Research Center located in Cincinnati, OH. Scientists in Cincinnati have been working on clean water issues for more than 100 years. Along with Rob Janke, the RTX project is being led by a multi-disciplinary team composed of Steve Allgeier, Michael Tryby, Lewis Rossman, Terra Haxton, and John Hall.

Jun 6, 2013

When It Comes to Water, We Are All Close Neighbors

Around the Water Cooler, Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee, Crow Reservation, drinking water, groundwater, Little Big Horn College, microbial contamination, river water quality 0 Comments

By MJ Eggers, MJ Lefthand, SL Young, JT Doyle and A Plenty Hoops, with contributions from other team members: UJ Bear Don’t Walk, A Bends, B Good Luck, L Kindness, AKHG McCormick, DL Felicia, E Dietrich, TE Ford, and AK Camper.

Little Big Horn River, Montana. Photo by John Doyle.

Until the 1960s, many families on the Crow Reservation still hauled river water for home use, a practice most of us remember from our childhoods. As agriculture expanded and river water quality visibly deteriorated, wells and indoor plumbing became available and rural families switched to home well water.

In many parts of the Reservation, this was a hardship, not a blessing: the groundwater tapped for home wells is high in total dissolved solids and often so rich in iron and manganese that it’s undrinkable. The hard water build-up or “scale” also ruins hot water heaters. We have learned that the majority of home wells (55%) have water that presents a health risk, due to mineral or microbial contamination or both.

As a country, we may imagine our citizens have universal access to safe drinking water—but for millions of rural residents with poor quality well water, and who can’t afford cisterns, treatment systems, or all the bottled water they might want—this simply is not the case. In our communities, people are cooking with poor tasting, contaminated water, and living with the health consequences.

In 2004, Tribal members who were—and still are—passionate about and dedicated to addressing community-wide water quality issues and health disparities joined forces as the Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee. They recruited academic partners and Little Big Horn College science majors to help.

We have been working together to research what is contaminating local groundwater and surface waters, what the health risks are from domestic, cultural, and recreational uses of these water sources, and how best to educate the community about the risks.

Archival image of Crow women getting water from river

Crow women getting water for camp from the Little Big Horn River, close to present day Crow Agency, Crow Reservation, Montana. Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian (N13758). Photo by Fred E. Miller.

One challenge is that various traditional practices involve respectfully consuming (untreated) river and spring water right from the source. Maintaining these cultural practices “is part of what makes us Crow,” so, instead of expecting people to simply give them up, we are collaborating with the Tribe on pursuing additional funding opportunities to address the pollution sources affecting our rivers and a culturally-important spring. We are also helping to make clear that traditional uses of river water, including drinking it untreated, need to be considered in planning, risk assessments, and policy decisions.

We are working to restore the health of our rivers and of our community. We realize it takes passion, commitment, mutual support and a broad-based, grassroots effort. We have learned that we are all close neighbors when it comes to water. How we treat our water is the respect we show to our neighbors, and how we would want them to treat us.

About the Authors: MJ Lefthand, SL Young and JT Doyle are members of the Crow Environmental Health Steering Committee (CEHSC). The Committee is made up of Crow Tribal members with varied expertise in environmental science, water resources, health, law and culture. MJ Eggers is an academic partner from Little Big Horn College and Montana State University Bozeman. A Plenty Hoops works for the Crow Tribal Environmental Protection Program. Additional contributors are members of the CEHSC, academic partners or student interns.

May 30, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: Avoiding that Sinking Feeling

14th Street Sinkhole, aging water infrastructure, Around the Water Cooler, DC Sewer and Water Authority 5 Comments

By Aaron Ferster

Crews work to fix DC’s aging water infrastructure.

As if Washington, DC commuters didn’t face enough challenges navigating to and from work, those who travel by car were confronted with a new one late last week: a giant sinkhole began to consume 14^th Street, a key route connecting downtown with bridges and major highways just beyond.

Located only a few blocks from the White House, the crevasse grew to some 15-feet across, leading authorities to close the road in both directions for days. (As I write this, only the south-bound lanes had re-opened.)

Since its appearance, the sinkhole and its aftermath have dominated traffic reports and drawn a steady stream of curious onlookers from nearby office buildings and surrounding neighborhood tourist spots. The ever expanding meme has even sparked a Twitter account (@14thStSinkhole), ripe with parody. (As a frequent bike commuter, my favorite interaction: “I am the stuff of dreams!! RT @hellbucci: Had a dream that as I biked to work, I fell into the @14thStSinkhole. Not cool sinkhole.”)

But all joking aside, sinkholes and other symptoms of our aging water infrastructure are serious business. This particular incident apparently evolved from an ill-placed storm drain, which clogged and sent rainwater free-flowing under the street where it eroded the underlying ground and destroyed a 54-inch brick sewer line built in the 1800s.

According to a D.C. Sewer and Water Authority news release, the already complex repairs were made more difficult due to a number of utility lines and old, buried trolley tracks under the street. A hidden hole for entry from the street, identified on DC Water records, was eventually located eight feet below the surface of the road, paved over many times through the years.

Such challenges related to the nation’s aging water infrastructure are nothing new to EPA engineers and scientists who are working to identify critical research needs and develop, test, and demonstrate innovative technologies to reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of existing or new water infrastructure.

As reported by fellow blogger Sarah Blau (see Is Your Toilet Leaking), “EPA researchers are looking at ways to assess water infrastructure for leaks without disrupting water supply for consumers (i.e. avoiding water shut-offs or pipe excavations). Other research is focused on preventing leaks from occurring, specifically by examining the relationship between water chemistry and plumbing life expectancy.”

To learn more, visit EPA’s Aging Water Infrastructure Research webpage. You can also read about a specific research project exploring pinhole leaks in copper pipes (“Problems with Pinhole Leaks in Your Copper Water Pipes”) in our Science Matters newsletter. It’s all part of our effort to share how EPA researchers are working to solve all sorts of problems—and I can guarantee that you’ll find the reading a lot cooler than riding your bicycle into a sinkhole!

About the Author: Aaron Ferster dodges sinkholes and other obstacles to and from his job as an EPA science writer, where he edits the It All Starts with Science blog.

May 16, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: American Wetlands Month—and Your Dinner

alligators and crocodiles, American Wetlands Month, Around the Water Cooler, Bayou Country, beaver, birds, ecosystem services, Fishing, Green Infrastructure, hunting, mink, muskrat, Nutrient pollution, riparian buffer, Seafood, swamps, water quality, wetlands 0 Comments

By Lahne Mattas-Curry

Bayou country, located along the Gulf of Mexico, specifically Louisiana, has historically shaped the culture and the economy of the region. The Bayou—otherwise known as wetlands, swamps, or bogs—is an economic resource supporting commercial and sport fishing, hunting, recreation and agriculture.

Remember the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company? The shrimping business the fictional Forrest Gump started (and since inspired a real restaurant chain). Without clean and healthy wetlands, there’s no shrimping business, not in the movies and not in real life.

This month is American Wetlands Month and EPA is acknowledging the extensive benefits—or “ecosystem services”—that wetlands provide. From trapping floodwaters and recharging groundwater supplies to removing pollution and providing fish and wildlife habitat, wetlands improve water quality in nearby rivers, streams and lakes and even serve as a natural filter for our drinking water. They are the “kidneys” of our hydrologic cycle.

In Bayou Country, wetlands provide nearly all of the commercial catch and half the recreational harvest of fish and shellfish. They are extremely valuable to the region’s economy. Wetlands in the region provide the habitat for birds, alligators and crocodiles, muskrat, beaver, mink and a whole bunch of other important critters.

EPA researchers all over the country are looking at different ways to keep our wetlands clean and healthy. From nutrient pollution research and water quality research to buffers around rivers and stream habitat (“riparian zones”) and other green infrastructure efforts, scientists are ensuring that our wetlands can continue to do their work – providing a habitat, filtering out pollution, and supporting our economy.

This month, wherever you sit down to enjoy all the shrimp and seafood you can eat, remember that without healthy and clean wetlands, none of that would be possible.

For more information on how EPA scientists monitor and assess our wetlands, read here.

About the Author: Lahne Mattas-Curry loves clean water, healthy beaches and great seafood. A regular contributor to EPA’s It All Starts with Science blog, she helps communicate the great science in the Agency’s Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Program.

May 9, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: Sewage Science

Around the Water Cooler, community health, sewage chemical-information mining, waste water, Water Treatment 3 Comments

By Sarah Blau

As a pre-veterinary student and a dog owner, I probably pay more attention than most to what comes out the tail end of my pooch. And yes, I’m talking about poo. Though it sounds gross at first, excrement can actually tell us a lot about the health of the poo-producer.

As I dutifully scoop the offending pile into a biodegradable bag, a brief glance lets me know if my pup is dehydrated or has any GI upset I may need to address. And when we go for our annual checkup at the local vet’s office, microscope analysis of a fecal sample will find worms or other heath risks I need to know about to protect my little girl.

So, why am I going on and on about egesta (aka, poo)? Well, EPA scientist Christian Daughton is dabbling with the idea that knowledge of a community’s health can be gleaned from community waste—or, sewage—in much the same manner that bodily health knowledge can be gleaned from the waste of my pup!

This fascinating new research concept is referred to as “Sewage Chemical-Information Mining” (SCIM). It targets analysis of community sewage from waste-treatment plants for specific biological or chemical substances broadly associated with human health or disease. In this way, scientists might someday quickly screen for and locate community populations that are possibly exposed to health risks or susceptible to disease outbreaks. It could also be used to rank communities in terms of overall health.

Daughton published two papers last year describing the unique concept of SCIM and the results of his work to date. This research is intended as a catalyst for future work by federal agencies and others, presenting an innovative way to measure, monitor, and protect public health.

So, as off-putting as it seems, don’t pooh-pooh the importance of monitoring waste. This ground-breaking method of analyzing community sewage for chemicals that can reflect community health has the potential to turn into a whole new field of science!

And this is what I’ll be thinking about as I scoop up the steaming present my hound will undoubtedly “pooduce” for me this afternoon – how brilliant our world is that so much useful information can be found in a stinky pile of…

About the Author: Sarah Blau is a student services contractor working on the Science Communications Team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. She doesn’t often discuss poo around the water cooler – she finds it turns people off – but she does dispose of her dog, Cheddar’s, excrement on a daily basis.

May 2, 2013

Around the Water Cooler: Climate Ready Estuaries

Around the Water Cooler, climate change, climate change research, Estuaries, estuary, marsh, National Estuary Program, San Francisco Bay 1 Comment

To continue the Agency’s efforts to expand the conversation on climate change, we are highlighting EPA climate change research with Science Matters articles. This week’s “Around the Water Cooler” features research to support climate ready estuaries.

Climate Ready Estuaries Program
EPA researchers assess coastal habitats to identify vulnerabilities and help communities prepare.

Estuaries serve as the connections between the ocean and freshwater rivers and streams.

Estuaries are partially enclosed water bodies that serve as the connections between the ocean and freshwater rivers and streams. Both their water and surrounding soils are nutrient-rich, providing homes for some of the most biologically productive and diverse habitats in the world. These habitats are critical places for many species of fish to reproduce, for birds to find refuge and “refuel” during migration, and for people to swim and boat. Many also serve as sources of drinking water.

Estuaries are directly linked to environmental quality, human well-being, and national prosperity. Estuarine marshes help maintain water quality by filtering surface water runoff and retaining excess nutrients, pollutants and sediments. They decrease the impacts of coastal flooding by absorbing stormwater, preventing the inundation of surrounding communities. Estuarine habitats also serve as nurseries for commercially important fish and shellfish.

Estuaries are also highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

In the coming decades, estuaries will be threatened by rising sea levels, warming temperatures, and increasingly powerful storms. EPA researchers are working with the National Estuaries Programs (NEPs) and coastal managers to learn more about the risks estuaries face due to a changing climate, and are leading efforts to help coastal managers and others develop the capabilities (“adaptation strategies”) to protect them from the impacts of global climate change.

One vulnerable habitat that researchers have studied is the San Francisco Bay estuary, where EPA scientists collaborated with colleagues from the San Francisco Bay Estuary Partnership, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission to assess the ecological vulnerability of coastal systems in the Bay area.

“We looked at key processes that are critical to maintaining salt marsh and mudflat ecosystems,” explains EPA scientist Jordan West. “We asked: how are different physical and biological variables involved in processes such as sediment retention being impacted by climate change, and how do we separate all of these pieces and identify the greatest sensitivities? After we had done that, we could then look at what options might be available to communities for managing these problems.”

San Francisco Bay

The project team convened a group of local experts to look at the different relationships between plants, animals, and physical processes in the San Francisco Bay estuary to determine which parts are currently the most sensitive and thus most likely to be impacted by climate change. Once they were able to identify sensitivities in the estuary, they developed adaptation strategies that the surrounding community could use to better manage risks and increase resiliency.

For example, salt marshes are sensitive to the effects that climate change will have on freshwater flows (the freshwater flowing into them from streams and rivers), as these flows affect salinity, which in turn, affects the growth of marsh plants. Thus one recommendation is to manage reservoirs for steady, low-volume releases during the growing season, to regulate salinity and favor marsh plant productivity. Since marshes are also sensitive to erosion during increasingly-intense storms, additional actions to consider are building berms or restoring oyster reefs as protective barriers against wave energy.

Because of the uncertainty surrounding the severity and timing of the effects of climate change, communities must develop strategies that account for a variety of potential circumstances.

“It’s essentially planning for many potential outcomes and being prepared to act on each one,” says West. “You have to look at a range of plausible scenarios. We use many different climate models that make different assumptions, which provides us with a variety of possible future scenarios. This lets us look for options that work across a range of outcomes. Alternatively, communities can prepare an assortment of options so that they have flexibility in their response based on what occurs in the future.”

The strategies developed by EPA researchers and their partners are providing decision makers in San Francisco and elsewhere with the information they need to develop adaptation strategies and make decisions based on sound science. Their findings, while site-specific, show that early planning could help vulnerable communities escape, or at least mitigate, some of the devastating impacts of climate change on estuaries around the country.

Learn More

Estuaries and Coastal Wetlands

Climate Ready Estuaries (website)

Climate Ready Estuaries 2012 Progress Report (pdf)

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