DENVER, CO, Dec. 1, 2015 -- The Water Research Foundation (WRF), a leading sponsor of research supporting the water community, has been awarded a $1 million grant by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create water quality strategies for the treatment of drinking water in the event of a drought or other natural hazards.
The project will seek to provide water utilities and local government officials with the information needed to maintain a level of quality and availability for drinking water that is consistent with regulatory and public health protection goals in cases of extreme climate events.
"Prolonged periods of drought and other extreme weather events can present many different water quality and quantity challenges for water utilities," said Rob Renner, Executive Director of WRF. "This is a reality we must be prepared to handle, and we hope that the research WRF is conducting will help stakeholders in local communities take the necessary actions to preserve water resources and ensure the continued delivery of safe drinking water."
Drought due to climate change and other extreme events such as wildfire and floods can affect drinking water in multiple ways. When these natural disasters occur, the flow of sediment in watersheds can be significantly altered to a degree that impacts the way utilities must treat the water in order to meet regulatory standards. Consequently, prolonged drought conditions make it difficult to assess the future availability of source water, which also hinders a water utility's ability to make informed decisions throughout the water treatment process.
In partnership with a team of researchers from University of Colorado -- Boulder, WRF will develop water quality strategies for utilities to help work against some of these present challenges by studying the flow of sediment downstream to water treatment facilities and how that transportation process is impacted in the event of a natural hazard. Additionally, statistical tools will be created to help understand the threshold variability of key water quality parameters in order to quantify the risks of these extreme scenarios.
The research project will include participation from municipal utilities across the United States. The Principal Investigator for the project will be Balaji Rajagopalan, professor and chair of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) at CU-Boulder. Kenan Ozekin will serve as the Research Manager for the Water Research Foundation. For more information about the Water Research Foundation and its other projects, please visit www.waterrf.org.
About the Water Research Foundation
The Water Research Foundation is an internationally recognized leader in sponsoring research that supports the water community in holistically and cooperatively managing water from all sources to meet social, environmental, and economic needs. WRF's research provides reliable and relevant solutions to the most critical challenges facing the water community today and into the future. Founded in 1966, WRF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that has sponsored nearly 1,500 research projects valued at $500 million, and serves more than 1,000 subscribing organizations. For more information, go to www.WaterRF.org.
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