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Untapped Potential: Water Innovation to Advance the SDGs

In this session, we participated in a dialogue among key UN players driving the SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework and C-suite executives who have pledged support for the Water Resilience Coalition to explore how innovations in supply chain management, technology, and governance practices can advance the 2030 Agenda.

Capturing Water While Supporting Ecosystems: Report Provides a Pathway for Water-Conscious Communities to Keep Their Rivers Flowing

October 12, 2020, Oakland, California -- As forward-thinking cities become increasingly adept at capturing and reusing wastewater, stormwater, and greywater, essential river systems may be at risk. A report released last month suggests deliberate, community-driven planning is urgently needed to avoid depriving adjacent waterways of necessary water.

Ensuring One Water Delivers for Healthy Waterways: A Framework for Incorporating Healthy Waterways into One Water Plans and Projects

As forward-thinking cities become increasingly adept at capturing and reusing wastewater, stormwater, and greywater, essential river systems may be at risk. The “One Water” approach to water management emphasizes an integrated planning and implementation approach that acknowledges the finite nature of water resources and prioritizes long-term resilience and reliability.

Greta Thunberg Uses Popular Meme to Show the Devastating Cost of Climate Change

From Source to Tap: Assessing Water Quality in California  

Water providers in California face myriad challenges in sustainably providing high quality drinking water to their customers while protecting the natural environment. 

Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation to Leverage the SDG6 in the Business Agenda

This World Water Week 2020 session aimed to create dialogue around the undeniable link between climate change and its impact on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).

Building Resilience at All Levels – From Local to National

This webinar discussed water challenges resulting from Brazil's precarious urbanization and explores solutions to deal with these challenges.

Nature-Based Solutions to Address Water Scarcity Due to Climate Change

This webinar from World Water Week 2020 fostered dialogue around the central role that nature-based solutions (NBS) plays in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, highlighting the social, economic and environmental co-benefits.

Goals House Day 3 – Clean Water and Sanitation Saves Lives

Hosted by ABI InBev, Water.org and Reckitt Benckiser the Clean Water and Sanitation Saves Lives panel will focus on how access to clean water and sanitation as a crucial live source is to ensure communities are able to function and to save lives.

September 2020 Newsletter

The monthly newsletter features the Pacific Institute’s research, publications, news about past and upcoming Institute staff outreach efforts, and media coverage of its work and analysis.

UN Global Compact Water Resilience Coalition Partners with WaterAid to Call for Collective Action on Water Access 

UNITED NATIONS, New York, 23 September 2020 — The Water Resilience Coalition, an industry-driven, CEO-led initiative of the United Nations Global Compact, has launched “Water is Resilience: A Call for Collective Action on Water Access” in partnership with WaterAid as part of the global response to COVID-19. 

Pacific Institute at Climate Week NYC 2020 

It is vital that the global community not quickly forget the COVID-19 crisis, but draw lessons from it to rebuild more equitable and sustainable societies. This week, for Climate Week NYC 2020, the Pacific Institute will participate in sessions focused on the role of the business sector in advancing water resilience and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The focus of this year’s event from September 21st to 27th is rebuilding after the COVID-19 pandemic using lessons learned to pursue an equitable transition to a net-zero future.  

Ending Conflicts Over Water

In recent years, a wide range of water-related factors have contributed to political instability, human dislocation and migration, agricultural and food insecurity, and in more and more cases, actual conflict and violence.

Ending Conflicts Over Water: Solutions to Water and Security Challenges

Seventeen countries, home to a quarter of the world’s population, face extremely high water stress, according to recent analysis from the World Resources Institute. Billions of people face other growing water challenges as well, including highly polluted water, increasingly erratic rainfall leading to more severe droughts and floods, and lack of access to safe and affordable drinking water.

Op-Ed: The Future Has Arrived. These Explosive Fires Are Our Climate Change Wakeup Call

Like millions of people in the western United States this week, I woke up to deep red, sunless skies, layers of ash coating the streets, gardens, and cars, and the smell of burning forests, lives, homes, and dreams. Not to be too hyperbolic, but on top of the political chaos, the economic collapse, and the worst pandemic in modern times, it seemed more than a little apocalyptic.

Just Released: Water Recommendations to the Next President

September 14, 2020, Oakland, California – The Pacific Institute just released a set of top recommendations for federal water priorities for the next president of the United States. Calling for the president to take swift and meaningful action on a number of outstanding issues, from lack of access to safe water for tens of millions of Americans to climate change’s impacts on the nation’s water systems, Water Recommendations to the Next President includes a set of specific federal strategies and actions.

Water Recommendations to the Next President

Every human being needs safe and affordable water, but in the United States, tens of millions of people still lack it. As the COVID-19 pandemic revealed, poor water infrastructure and the failure to provide universal access to safe water and sanitation threaten public health. Meanwhile, water shortages, poor management, and antiquated water systems threaten the nation’s food supply, ecosystems, and economy.

How Does Business Prepare for Short-Term Shocks and Long-Term Resilience to Climate Change

The world’s economy is crucially dependent on water. Agriculture (70%) and industry (20%) constitute most uses of the world’s freshwater consumption. Climate change introduces uncertainties into the water cycle...

Report Finds at Least 1,000 To 6,000 Wells in California Are at Risk of Failure

September 2, 2020, Oakland, California – This week the Center for Regional Change at the University of California, Davis released a report that measures the vulnerability of domestic wells to groundwater management strategies in California. Sustainable for Whom? The Impact of Groundwater Sustainability Plans on Domestic Wells finds that at least 1,000 to 6,000 wells in California are at risk of failure in critically overdrafted groundwater basins under the locally proposed minimum thresholds.

Sustainable for Whom? The Impact of Groundwater Sustainability Plans on Domestic Wells

Studies estimate that 1.5 to 2.5 million Californians rely on domestic wells to meet their household water needs, but because domestic wells are often shallow, they are often sensitive to changes in groundwater levels. Thus sustainable groundwater management has an important role to play in safeguarding the health and safety of Californians and the achievement of the state’s recognized human right to water.

Water-related Conflicts Set to Rise Amid Demand Growth and Climate Impacts

New Report Finds Even the Toughest Water Security Problems Can Be Solved

September 2, 2020, Oakland, California — Water insecurity is increasing worldwide. Every day there are devastating floods, droughts and water crises around the world; and water risks are increasingly driving conflict and political instability. In most cases, these threats are not merely a consequence of weather or climate, but also the result of inadequate water management and governance. A new report from the Pacific Institute, World Resources Institute (WRI), and the Water, Peace and Security (WPS) Partnership finds that even the thorniest water problems can be solved.

Ending Conflicts Over Water: Solutions to Water and Security Challenges

Water-related conflict and political instability are on the rise across the globe. But while intensifying water challenges and the threats they pose to security are well documented, relatively few solutions have been presented. This report fills the gap by exploring several dozen strategies to reduce water-related conflicts in key water-insecure hotspots around the world.

How Distributed Water Infrastructure Can Boost Resilience in the Face of COVID-19 and Other Shocks  

COVID-19 — and the ensuing economic crisis — is affecting all sectors of society, including water. Across the country, water utilities are facing lower revenues, more unpaid and late water bills, and higher costs to protect essential staff from COVID-19.

Where the Oil Runs Deep, Water Turns Foul