Water Innovation Strategy Announced by Administration

The Obama Administration has announced a new public-private water innovation strategy. This strategy includes a two-part approach led by Federal agencies to address the impacts of climate change on the use and supply of our nation's water resources and calls on private sector and other stakeholder groups to help significantly scale up research and investment in water efficiency solutions. The Administration's new water innovation strategy calls for: 

• Boosting water sustainability and long-term water security by increasing use of water-efficient and -reuse technologies. The implicit goal is to reduce water usage by 33 percent and reduce nation's total CO2 emissions by about 1.5 percent annually.
• Promoting and investing in breakthrough research and development (R&D) that will reduce the price, energy costs, and emissions requirements of new water supply technology to achieve "pipe parity" in the next decade. The technical targets include reducing the cost by four times, reducing electricity usage by three times, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by two times.

To kick-start this strategy and set up the United States as a leader on the path towards greater water efficiency and improved water technologies the Administration announced the following:

• Released a new report that lays out the water innovation strategy in greater detail and proposes strategies for addressing this challenge in the decades ahead.
• Hosted a Roundtable on Water Innovation today to engage with industry and public leaders to start building broader consensus on a path forward..
• Called for commitments from private sector and stakeholder groups to advance innovation and technology for potential solutions to water issues so that sufficient water is available when and where we need it. On March 22, 2016, the United Nation's World Water Day, the Administration will bring representatives from Federal, State, regional, local, and tribal governments together with private sector and other stakeholder groups to the White House to discuss ways in which the public-private water innovation strategy is making progress. For more information HERE.
• Launching a new Center for Natural Resources Investment at the Department of the Interior, which will promote increased private investment in water infrastructure and facilitate locally-led water exchange agreements in the western United States.
• Announced a new funding opportunity for over $20 million in water and energy efficiency grants through the WaterSMART Water and Energy Efficiency Grant Program at the Department of the Interior. 
• Launched an interactive website tool at the Department of the Interior to shed light on the ongoing drought in the Colorado River basin.
• Announced that the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation is accepting applications for research, laboratory studies, and pilot projects that target increasing the usable supply of water in the United States.

More detail on the overall strategy and set of initiatives: link HERE.