The WATER CENTER
Engaging the University community with regional decision makers, national thought leaders and global water practitioners for the purpose of developing integrated and innovative urban water strategies that address public health, infrastructure, and the socioeconomic and environmental challenges of long-term urban water sustainability and resilience.
Our Vision & Mission
Our vision is to be the preeminent center for the regional and global advancement of innovative urban water strategies that create integrative real-world solutions for our shared water problems
Our mission is to support the resiliency and sustainability of our cities through collaborative and innovative research focused on integrated urban water policies and practices, water sciences, systems management, technology and water ecology
In The News
Plastic Pollution Causes Mussels to Lose Grip Feb 21, 2019 (Story from ScienceDaily)
EPA Acting Administrator Announces First Ever Comprehensive Nationwide PFAS Action Plan Feb 14, 2019 (Story from EPA)
Water Innovations for a Hot, Hungry Planet Feb 7, 2019 (Story from Forbes)
Eagles’ Chris Long Named the 2018 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Feb 5, 2019 (Story from The Inquirer)
Cleaning New York’s Filthy Harbor with One Billion Oysters Feb 4, 2019 (Story from CNN)
River Levels Tracked From Space Jan 31, 2019 (Story from ScienceDaily)
Water Center Happenings
On a more intimate scale, an event held at the Inn at Penn on Wednesday morning illustrated many of the key takeaways from the Tuesday meeting, this time zeroed in on a single site, the port city of Semarang. Bouw is leader of One Resilient Semarang, a project that entails devising a strategic plan for the growing urban center home to 1.7 million people, which is facing serious threats from subsidence—literal sinking—as a result of out-of-balance groundwater extraction.
Hosted by Penn’s Water Center, the One Resilient Semarang team laid out their initial findings and strategies for the city, led by Despo Thoma, the project manager. Thoma laid out “the cycle of vulnerability” the city has been experiencing, with industrial facilities on the coast pumping groundwater at unsustainable rates, triggering dangerous rates of subsidence. – PennToday
EVENTS
Date: February 26, 2019, 6 – 7:30pm
Location: Penn Bookstore Events Room. 3601 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Rolling Out the “Community-enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs” Tool
Date: March 7, 2019, 2 – 3:30pm EST
Location: Online
The web-based “Community‐enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs” (CLASIC) tool is intended to support stormwater infrastructure planning and decisions using lifecycle costs to compare green, hybrid green‐gray, and gray infrastructure practices. There are three main components to the CLASIC tool outputs: (1) lifecycle costs; (2) assessed value of co‐benefits (environmental, social, financial); and (3) performance. This webcast presents a rigorous framework of lifecycle cost analysis for green and gray infrastructure, along with a live demo of CLASIC tool features and user interface. In addition, the webcast provides an overview of the beta testing process for community engagement.
Presenters:
Harry Zhang, PhD, PE, The Water Research Foundation
Sybil Sharvelle, PhD, Colorado State University
Tyler Dell, Colorado State University
Jennifer Egan, PG, PhD, University of Maryland
Christine Pomeroy, PhD, PE, University of Utah
Michele Pugh, Wichita State University
Moderator:
Michele Pugh, Wichita State University
2019 Global Water Alliance Annual Conference
Title: Solving US and Global Water Inequities: Sharing Solutions from Around the World
Date: March 21, 2019, 8am – 3pm
Location: Huntsman Hall, University of Pennsylvania
Lack of clean water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) is still a global crisis associated with excess deaths among children, high morbidity, and crippling development. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #6 is to provide access to clean water, adequate sanitation and hygiene for everyone by the year 2030. Access to WASH is a stated public policy goal of all nations, yet every single country still experiences WASH inequalities. The Global Water Alliance announces its 12 th annual conference, in association with the Water Center at Penn (WCP) and Wharton’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL), with the theme of “finding solutions to water inequities.”
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The Water Center at Penn | University of Pennsylvania | Hayden Hall | 240 S. 33rd Street | Philadelphia, PA | 19104 | watercenter@sas.upenn.edu
