EESA research scientists are committed to identifying ways to adapt how water resources are used for energy production, irrigation, and other key societal needs in an energy-constrained and uncertain climate future. This World Water Day, an annual UN observance day that highlights the importance of freshwater, is focused on tackling the water crisis by addressing the reasons why billions of people still live without fresh water.
The results of Berkeley Lab research will offer a range of technology options and strategies to optimize water resource planning under changing scenarios. In celebration of World Water Day, EESA and Berkeley Lab are spreading the word about some of this important water research, described below, via social media.
Andy Jones and Alan Rhoades (pictured to the left and right of Pouya Vahmani) ran climate analyses of snowpack accumulation upstream of 10 major California reservoirs and found an expected average drop of 79 percent in peak snowpack water volume by the year 2100. Read more about their work here.
Haruko Wainwright, pictured above, has developed a low-cost method for real-time monitoring of groundwater pollution. Read more here.
Bhavna Arora, pictured above with former intern Dhristi Patel, studies how floods, drought, earlier snowmelt and other extremes impact water, nutrients, carbon, and metals moving downstream from mountainous watersheds. Read about her work and the work of others on the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area here.
Erica Woodburn is working to understand the effects of climate on California’s water supply using advanced computing that can assess changes in groundwater or snow accumulation. Read about her work here.