Deadline: 13-Dec-22
The Water Research Foundation (WRF) is seeking applications for Navigating One Water Planning through Municipal Water Programs: Meeting Multiple Objectives and Regulatory Challenges.
This project is funded by The Water Research Foundation (WRF) as part of WRF’s Research Priority Program.
Project Objectives
- To apply One Water planning principles and holistic watershed management approaches to multiple municipal programs, enabling utilities and municipalities to meet both environmental objectives and interconnected regulatory requirements (e.g., Clean Water Act [CWA] and Safe Drinking Water Act [SDWA]).
- To create a decision framework that can help utilities choose from and prioritize interconnected projects and initiatives at utilities.
- To facilitate engagement with regulatory agencies and proactively identify the priorities and benefits of various actions, including the use of incentive‐based strategies like water quality trading.
Research Approach
The research team will undertake activities in four main tasks as part of this study. First, the research team will perform a review and synthesis of literature on One Water planning that evaluates multiobjective decision analysis approaches and demonstrates implementation examples at utility and municipality levels. The research team will conduct a comprehensive literature review, including WRF’s research efforts to date. In addition, the research team will expand existing research on the state-of-thepractices and advancements of One Water planning across interconnected municipal water programs at utilities by further considering how the practices address cost-effectiveness and regulatory compliance needs from CWA, SDWA, and other water-related regulations in the U.S.
Funding Information
- Applicants may request up to $200,000 in WRF funds for this project.
- The anticipated period of performance for this project is 24 months from the contract start date.
Expected Deliverables
- A stand-alone literature review synthesis, including annotations for the list of publications and resources used. This will be published as a WRF Project Paper.
- A project paper on the topic of use attainability analysis.
- A proposed title for such a project paper could be Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for “Revisiting Use Attainability Analyses: How Utilities Can Navigate Through?”, which can be expanded from the published WRF report “Collaborative Water Quality Solutions: Exploring Use Attainability Analyses” (1186).
- One invitation-only virtual workshop, along with workshop planning and all supporting materials (e.g., agenda, presentations, meeting notes, and workshop summary).
- An interactive utility-facing guidance document.
- This will include a synthesis of case studies across different geographic regions, the utility survey results (along with survey questions and appliable statistical analysis), and an innovative decision support framework that can help utilities customize their solutions through a One Water Planning approach.
- In addition, this document will include a chapter and supporting technical appendix that summarizes the knowledge gaps, research needs, and preliminary project concepts for recommended research projects.
- Broader outreach:
- Webcasts and public outreach materials (e.g., infographics on “One Water Planning” that can help communicate research findings to both utilities and the general public).
- Submitting at least one open access peer-reviewed journal paper and additional outreach products as applicable.
Eligibility Criteria
Proposals will be accepted from domestic or international entities, including educational institutions, research organizations, governmental agencies, and consultants or other for-profit entities.
For more information, visit https://www.waterrf.org/open-rfps