Sustainable Water Resources Round Table (SWRR) Proceedings and Presentations from the April 27-28, 2011 Meeting held in Washington are now available.

SWRR’s purpose is to advance understanding of U.S. water resources and to develop tools for their sustainable management. SWRR looks at water resources as a subset of broader economic, social, and ecological systems. This is what EcoCloud and SSV is all about.

SSV’s Executive Director Marianna Grossman was moderator of a session on “Effective Communication of Scientific and Sustainability Information to the Public”.  Earlier in April SSV hosted a story telling event to enable Bay Area industry leaders how to tell stories to further sustainability goals.

Highlights of Event:

Day 1 focused on  Water indicators and footprinting tools.   Five organizations gave presentations on key indicators including the Key National Indicators Project (www.StateoftheUSA.org), the USFS National Aquatic Resource Surveys, USGS National Water Census, and EPA National Aquatic Resource Surveys.   Most of these mentioned budget limitations, and data gaps as significant issues.

 Several Industry reps talked about Water Footprinting tools and metrics used by industry to make decisions.  Intel and Cocoa Cola talked about their efforts.  Veiola presented information on its new innovative free tool, the new free water impact index (WII). It’s a decision making tool that allows you to compare alternatives using a mass balance approach. The index expands on existing volume-based water measurement tools by incorporating multiple factors including consumption, resource stress and water quality. http://www.veoliawaterna.com/sustainable/water-impact-index/

Day 2 focused on the top of the “Information Pyramid “(data at the bottom – stories at the top).  The focus here was how to develop stories to get information across to the public without getting drawn into political side battles.

A summary of each of the talks is below.

The Next Steps for SWRR

• Continuing outreach to bring more organizations into SWRR
• Refining Indicators including addressing issues like sustainability and scale
• Collaborating with national water census and other national indicators
• Assisting agencies to describe the need for programs to collect information

Summary of Presentations at April 2011 Conference

Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable Activities and History

• Key National Indicators Project: Provides a solution in a free and easily accessible web based scorecard to define, assess, and communicate about quality measures on nation’s major issues. www.StateoftheUSA.org
• USFS National Watershed Assessment: USFS is conducting a national Forest-based reconnaissance-level office evaluation of public and private watershed condition, built around 12 national watershed condition indicators. http://www.fs.fed.us/publications/watershed/Watershed_Condition_Fra...
• EPA National Aquatic Resource Surveys: Assess, develop relationships and indicators for biological and recreational condition use and stress of systems.
• USGS National Water Census: The Water Census is a nationwide system that will report every 5 years on the US Water Freshwater Resources. The USGS will develop a water accounting addressing items such as storage, flows, withdrawals, and ecological needs of the US freshwater, and will work closely with Energy Information Agency to develop water withdrawals by industrial category. http://www.doi.gov/watersmart/html/index.php
• EPA National Aquatic Resources Surveys. Federal-State Collaboration items like the AWRA National Water Vision, the Corps of Engineers Federal Toolbox, and the BLM/Western States Climate Change Collaboration. www.epa.gov/aquaticsurveys
• Generating Change in Outlook and Policy and Change on the Ground (or Water): looks at how to reduce trash in our streams using public education, legislation, regulation, and law enforcement. http://www.fergusonfoundation.org/trash_initiative/trash_accomplish...

Federal – State Collaboration on Water Sustainability: Will a National Vision Help?

• AWRA Position Statement on a National Water Vision: They reviewed existing federal water policy and identified future federal policy issues www.awra.org
• Development of a Federal Toolbox to Assist States: A description of the toolbox that US Army Corp is building was presented. The goal is to provide states, federal agencies, and local water resource agencies a comprehensive hub of information from 10 major federal agencies. The toolbox will include on development of a common data portal for integrated water resources management across the nation and across Federal agencies. http://www.building-collaboration-for-water.org/
• West Fast Climate Change Collaboration: Presented the success story of LANDSAT mission and accomplishments of Western States Federal Agency Support Team (WestFAST), collaboration between 11 Federal agencies with water management responsibilities in the West. http://www.westgov.org/wswc/WestFAST.htm

Industry Water Footprint: using metrics to guide sustainable water management.

• Water Footprinting & Other Sustainability Metrics… an Overview: An overview of Limno Techniques focusing on developing tools and metrics to solve water issues. Included in the presentation was a long list of global water initiatives http://www.limno.com/  
• Water Footprinting Initiatives to Industrial Facilities in the Great Lakes Pilot Facility approach will test use of water accounting initiatives at facilities in the Great Lakes Basin http://www.cgli.org/sustainable/sustainable.html
• America – Water Impact Index: Veolia spoke about its new free water impact index (WII). It’s a decision making tool that allows you to compare alternatives using a mass balance approach. The WII expands on existing volume-based water measurement tools by incorporating multiple factors including consumption, resource stress and water quality. http://www.veoliawaterna.com/sustainable/water-impact-index/
• Water Stewardship - Developing and Using Metrics to Guide Water Management: Coca Cola’s efforts in water management metrics: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/citizenship/water_main.html
• Water Footprinting - Using metrics to guide sustainability - Intel’s efforts in water sustainability http://www.intel.com/about/corporateresponsibility/environment/inde...
• The CEO Water Mandate – a sub-initiative of UN Global Compact The Pacific Institute is engaged in contributing to what a management system will look like that manages risks associated with water http://www.pacinst.org/reports/guide_to_responsible_business_engage...
• Water Soft Paths: Fresh Water & Ecological Security: Discussed the principles of the Soft Path Analysis

Effective Communication of Scientific and Sustainability Information to the Public:

• Energizing Change in Outlook, Change in Policy and Change on the Ground (or Water
• Communication Strategies
• Creating a Public Constituency
• Facilitated discussions on incorporating what the panel discussion has given us into action moving forward