A significant body of applied water research is already completed, underway, or planned by the Water Center.
Water Center Projects
The Water Center at Penn and Penn Praxis are coleading the development of a comprehensive stormwater master plan for Pittsburgh. This plan will ultimately provide a global model using the P4 Framework of People, Planet, Place, and Performance to provide an innovative, equitable, inclusive, and sustainable blueprint to address one of our region’s most challenging problems.
For too long, aging infrastructure and the impacts of climate change have created challenges for stormwater management. The increasingly frequent and intense rain causes the combined sewer system to overflow into rivers and… Read More
The Region 3 Water Technical Assistance (WaterTA) program is offering direct support to municipalities, tribes, and water utilities in US EPA Region 3 to help them access federal and state funding to address water infrastructure needs. This assistance will be delivered over the coming five years at no cost to recipients, through an award from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Assistance is available on a need basis, with priority given to historically underserved and disadvantaged communities.
Available services include assistance identifying water challenges; developing plans;… Read More
The Water Center at Penn is conducting research on generally available PFAS/PFOA health literature and corresponding outreach communications to assess how public health concerns regarding PFAS/PFOA are messaged, and how accurately the communications are relayed. Activities will include a synthesis of generally available PFAS/PFOA health literature, and a robust desktop analysis of the methods and modes of communication for the aforementioned literature review.
Task Description
The Penn Water Center will investigate how health concerns related to the presence of PFAS/PFOA in a water system… Read More
Recognizing the need to build trust within the West Philadelphia community, our project vision is to promote equitable education opportunities via access to the creek and state-of-the-art, “Ivy league”-level facilities adjacent to Cobbs Creek within the existing Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center (CCCEC). We intend for the facilities to be used by local West Philadelphia students and Penn students to collaborate and co-learn via STEM curricula with a focus on environmental health and environmental justice (EJ). In addition to generating STEM opportunities for students, our intention… Read More
Conference exploring innovative regional solutions designed to encourage new stormwater utilities and novel approaches for bringing new financial resources to bear in the protection and restoration of our waterways.