Water Resources

As part of the White House Water Summit, hosted today in honor of World Water Day, more than 150 institutions have announced their efforts to enhance the sustainability of water in the United States by managing our water resources and infrastructure for the long term. Commitments by two groups with ties to the Energy & Resources Group (ERG) are included:

Dipti Vaghela is passionate about micro hydro. Vaghela’s organization, the Hydropower Empowerment Network, takes a country-by-country approach to rural electrification, helping micro hydro and other technologies take root in places where electricity is expensive and hard – or even impossible – to come by. Her goal? To bring electricity in a sustainable and participatory way to places that need it.

Have you ever wondered how wetlands provide services to you and your community? If not, you are not alone. However, there are examples all across the country of ways that wetlands and the state programs that protect them are providing significant benefits to you. Wetlands are known as natural filters and sponges that absorb water. With these attributes, they provide invaluable functions for slowing and storing water from storm events in ways that limit flood damage. They filter pollutants out of runoff. They store carbon. They buffer the land

"We’re documenting over and over again the importance of forests for mitigating floods and providing dry season water,” says Jefferson Hall, a forest ecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama.

On a drought-parched piece of land in California's Central Valley, farmer Don Cameron has persuaded other growers to do something counterintuitive. Flood their farms. "I think you could put millions of acre feet back into the ground," said Cameron, who grows everything from almonds and grapes to carrots and tomatoes.

Heather Coleman spoke at the the NASA Climate Policy Speaker Series on Oxfam's global work and COP21. Visit the NASA website