Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable Held this Week

The Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable (SWRR) held a meeting this week in Washington, DC and ASDWA staff attended.  The SWRR is a subcommittee of the USGS Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI) and brings together Federal, state, corporate, non-profit, and academic sectors to advance our understanding of the nation’s water resources and to develop tools for their sustainable management.  The meeting was held at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), the nation’s only urban land-grant university.  Some of the highlights from the meeting included:

  • Information about UDC’s urban agriculture program that works directly with DC neighborhoods to offer a range of assessment services for residents and community groups such as nutrition education, soil testing, water quality monitoring, lead abatement, and gardening demonstrations.
  • A presentation about the National Weather Service’s efforts to integrate runoff and sea level rise data, along with other Federal data such as the USGS National Hydrography Dataset, for the purpose of enhancing precipitation modelling and transforming its water prediction program, and to develop decision support tools.
  • A presentation from Waterkeepers Chesapeake about their efforts to reduce nutrient pollution in the bay aimed at making all of the waterways swimmable, drinkable, and fishable, and by promoting a safe, healthy, sustainable, and fair food system in Maryland.
  • A presentation about the Delaware River Watershed Initiative that is being driven by funding from the William Penn Foundation and a collaboration of 50 non-profits to accelerate conservation by prioritizing project areas, conducting monitoring and collecting data, and using maps and tools to protect and restore water quality in the watershed.

For more information about SWRR, visit the website HERE.