The Colorado River is managed under the “Law of the River,” a complex series of agreements, laws, legal decisions, and regulations that originated with the 1922 Colorado River Compact. There are important lessons and successes from the past 100 years to remember as the basin faces urgent water challenges driven…
Oysters are an iconic and important part of Louisiana’s coastal ecosystem, culture, and economy. But in addition to harvest pressure, the oysters are under stress from increased freshwater, either from heavy rainfall fueled by climate change or diversions of water from the Mississippi River. In this episode Morgan Kelly, an…
Historically bulkheads, seawalls, and other hardened structures were used along the Carolina coast to protect from the forces of erosion, waves, and storms. But there is a rise in the use of living shorelines, a stabilization technique that uses natural materials like rocks, oyster reefs, and plants. Living shorelines are…
A common market-based approach to environmental conservation is stream mitigation banking, which allows an entity to degrade or destroy a stream while developing property in exchange for restoration of a stream someplace else. A new book Streams of Revenue explores the history of this practice and is authored by Martin…
The higher temperatures and reduced precipitation in the Colorado River Basin are no longer viewed as a short-term drought, but as a longer-term aridification caused by climate change. The alarming strain on the region’s water resources is being met with a more holistic approach to management, a deeper sense of…
As the drinking water crisis unfolded in Flint, it became clear that removing all of the lead pipes to people’s homes would be a daunting challenge. Among the reasons - a lack of records on locations, competing approaches for the order, and a community that was distrustful and in many…
waterloop host Travis Loop reviews the Flume smart device he uses to monitor water at at his house. Flume tracks water use in real-time, displays the data on an app, and sends alerts about excessive use or leaks. A plumber is not needed for installation and Flume is made in…
Conversation and collaboration are key ingredients in accelerating change in water management across Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania, where aging infrastructure, mining and fracking, and emerging pollutants like PFAS are part of the water challenges. In this episode Alison De Luise, Senior Advisor at the Water Center at Penn, and Karl…
The spectacular California coast is incredibly diverse, from the mega-urban areas of Southern California and the Bay Area to the rugged rural areas of the Central Coast and Northern California. The water challenges are equally diverse, with climate change, stormwater, agriculture, the energy industry, and more as problems. In this…
Greg Characklis is Director of the Center on Financial Risk in Environmental Systems at the University of North Carolina. In this episode Greg explains the financial risk to society from variability and uncertainty in the environment such as floods, droughts, extreme temperatures, and storms. He discusses the increased attention on…
Philip Berke is the Director of the Center for Resilient Communities and the Environment at the University of North Carolina. In this episode Philip explains the pressing need for communities to focus on planning to become more resilient to climate change. He discusses a variety of approaches, from hardening of…
Kathryn Lucero is Community Environmental Management Specialist at Communities Unlimited. In this episode Kathryn talks about colonias, the Spanish word for neighborhood, which is used in reference to residential areas along the U.S.-Mexico border that often have substandard housing and lack basic infrastructure such as water. She discusses how efforts…
Heather Stapleton is a professor and Lee Ferguson is an associate professor at Duke University. In this episode Heather and Lee discuss how discovery of GenX in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River sparked testing for PFAS in waterways across the state, which found elevated levels of the forever chemicals in…
Susana De Anda is the Executive Director of the Community Water Center. In this episode Susana says that an estimated one million people in California lack access to safe, reliable drinking water and that most of them are Latino and low-income individuals. She explains how the Community Water Center uses…
Marc Edwards is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech University. In this episode Marc discusses how he became involved in the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan and that it was a failure of responsibility across all levels and aspects of government. He explains the model of investigative…
Felicia Marcus is a Fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program and member of the Water Policy Group. In this episode Felicia discusses many of the major water issues in California, drawing from her experience in leadership roles at the U.S. EPA, state Water Resources Control Board, and…
Peter Colohan is the Executive Director of the Internet of Water project at Duke University and Stacy Timmons is the Associate Director of Hydrology Programs for the New Mexico Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources. In this episode Peter and Stacy discuss the challenges of finding and using water data…
Tim Male is Executive Director of the Environmental Policy Innovation Center and Seyi Fabode is CEO and Co-Founder of Varuna. In this episode Tim and Seyi discuss the need to reinvent the Consumer Confidence Reports that drinking water utilities are required to provide to customers. They explain that the public…
Diane Durance is the Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). In this episode Diane explains that the term Blue Economy refers to a range of economic uses of ocean and coastal resources including energy, shipping, fisheries, aquaculture, and tourism. She…
Nathan Ohle is the CEO of the Rural Community Assistance Partnership. In this episode Nathan talks about the communities and character of rural America, and how water challenges often stem from resource and capacity issues. He explains that RCAP provides a blend of training and technical assistance through a network…
Rick Luettich is Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina. In this episode Rick explains that climate change is warming the ocean and atmosphere and raising sea level, leading to hurricanes that are stronger and wetter. He discusses the use of computer modeling to…
Colin Wellenkamp is the Executive Director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative. In this episode Colin discusses how mayors for more than 100 cities and towns on the main stem of the Mississippi River work together on common goals for clean water, sustainable economies, food security, climate resilience,…
Dan Bena is a former water and sustainability executive at PepsiCo and currently a senior consultant for the Safe Water Network. In this episode Dan discusses how a global company like PepsiCo views its relationship to water and how corporations are approaching water risk and management. He talks about the…
Mariah Davis is Policy and Campaigns Manager at the Choose Clean Water Coalition. In this episode Mariah talks about her journey as a Black woman in the environmental field and how she feels about the intense focus on equity the past several months. She discusses the efforts and roles of…