NSF Award
2228718
Southwestern United States and much of the Intermountain West face a major water crisis due to persistent and unprecedented drought conditions. The Great Salt Lake Basin lies at the heart of the Intermountain West and is confronted with pressures that put its ecological integrity, human health, and even regional security at risk. Many of these factors are exacerbated by rapid population growth, unsustainable urban development, social expectations toward water use and availability, and improper mechanisms to reduce water use. State agencies, research institutions, and lawmakers have rallied around several provisions to address the problem yet a gap still remains between ambitions and actions by individuals and institutions. This research bridges the knowledge and resource gaps through development of a formal network of community and civic organizations and actors to facilitate positive and timely movement toward improving land development and water conservation. This network pilots a community-level, research-driven project that connects local government, environmental stewards, and water users directly to technology, analytics, and scenario modeling tools. Broader impacts include improving land and water management and planning in the Great Salt Lake Basin, reducing urban/suburban sprawl, public education and engagement in the process of evaluating issues involved with water use and accessibility, and improved ecosystem services of the Great Salt Lake.<br/><br/>The project assembles a cross-cutting, multi-institutional team to craft a shared vision for water resource management that spans industry, non-government organizations, defense organizations, commercial enterprises, and government agencies. The project leverages relationships between Utah State University’s Institute for Land, Water, and Air and the Center for Anticipatory Intelligence, Utah Regional Water Districts, and environmental non-profits working in the watershed. Research will address various issues of important including: major barriers that limit a systematic and comprehensive approach toward long-term, security-centric, future land development and use of water resources and how prolonged drought, urban growth, land use change, and recent water policies intersect to impact long-term outcomes of the Great Salt Lake Basin. To tackle these issues, the research team and their partners will host various workshops and charettes to identify organizational connectedness and gauge awareness of how existing and past policies and social norms and environmental conditions influence the watershed. The project adopts a novel new social interaction methodology called the System-Centric Threats and Resilience Assessment Tool. This tool assesses possible unprecedented threats and unintended consequences resulting from the convergence of regional, national and global events. Project goals are a clearer knowledge of actual water use and what influences this behavior; improved policy and tools for reducing outdoor water use; improved outdoor water efficiency; greater water security and community resilience in the region; and generalizable methods for measuring tradeoffs and adjusting water systems management throughout Utah. If successful, the results of the approach can be translated to other communities and urban settings in drought or other water impacted areas.<br/><br/>This project is in response to the Civic Innovation Challenge program—Track A. Living in a changing climate: pre-disaster action around adaptation, resilience, and mitigation—and is a collaboration between NSF, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
