Freshwater

Finding answers to the world’s pressing water supply and access challenges requires crossing disciplines and exploring a wide range of approaches. Stanford researchers are working together on sustainable solutions ranging from a low-cost water pump chlorinator to a high-tech, multi-million-dollar wastewater resource recovery center. They also are looking at water supply issues from a law and public policy standpoint, providing guidance to decision-makers through knowledge-based tools such as an interactive website illustrating California’s major groundwater challenges and potential solutions. To advance these and other innovative freshwater solutions, Woods supports the Global Freshwater Initiative, which develops strategies to promote the long-term viability of freshwater supplies; the Water, Health & Development Program, which identifies ways to improve and increase the sustainability of water supply and sanitation service delivery; and the Water in the West Program, which addresses multiple dimensions of realistic, integrated solutions to the American West’s water challenges. Read on for examples of work Woods-affiliated researchers are doing to ensure adequate supply and access to safe water for billions of people.

In The News

Opinion: Water Level Is Low; Info Is Too

Quotes Leon Szeptycki, executive director of Water in the West at Stanford, on the lack of information about groundwater in California
July 28, 2014 - By Thomas Elias, Los Angeles Daily News

Read More

U.C. Drought Study Reveals Dramatic Drop In Groundwater

Quotes Barton H. "Buzz" Thompson, Stanford Woods Institute co-director and senior fellow, on how California is using up its stores of groundwater
July 25, 2014 - By Elizabeth Cook, CBS San Francisco Bay Area (KPIX)

Read More

The Water Crisis in the West

Features Newsha Ajami, director of urban water policy for Water in the West at Stanford, who focuses on the water-energy connection as part of a "...
June 30, 2014 - By , The New York Times

Read More

Drought Lessons From Down Under

Quotes Rebecca Nelson, research fellow with Water in the West, on what Californians can learn from Australia's response to a recent nine-year drought
June 30, 2014 - By Craig Miller, KQED

Read More