Fire and Water Federal Initiative 

The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 will fund a proposal prepared by IWW for Oregon State University to conduct a study and other academic research on the associated impacts of wildfire on water resource ecology, water supply, quality, and distribution in the Willamette River Basin and to develop a water resource assessment and management platform for the Willamette River Basin as directed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. 

Lower Umatilla Groundwater Management Area 

After nearly thirty years of hydrogeologic investigations and implementing voluntary practices to reduce nitrogen input to the groundwater systems, Senate Bill 1562 was introduced in 2020 due to interest in developing an "implementation plan to improve groundwater quality and obtain full or partial removal of groundwater management area designation from Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area.” DEQ policy staff drafted legislative concept (LC 580) to evaluate the efficacy of Oregon’s Groundwater Quality Act which includes the GWMAs. The Oregon Department of Agriculture is funding a postdoc housed at IWW to harmonize existing data collected over the past 30 years from various state agencies. 

Saline Lakes Restoration and Policy Options 

Global declines in endorheic basins—that is, basins that have no external surface drainage other than evapotranspiration or groundwater seepage—are not new. Lake Abert and Summer Lake in southeastern Oregon—the remnants of Lake Chewaucan—are also silently disappearing but without much fanfare, even though both lakes are important stops for migrating waterfowl and related ecotourism. IWW is working in concert with a University of Oregon Conflict Resolution Program graduate student on inventorying global engineering and policy responses to drying lakes for the Oregon Lakes Association and the Cheuwacan Basin Collaborative. 

Serious Gaming Research and Development 

Serious gaming is a $11B business and is used in many fields such as Marine Resource Management, Land Use Planning, and Climate Change. How can water managers and mediators mitigate conflict over transboundary water resources regardless of the geographic scale? We believe the answer is social learning through serious gaming. IWW is regularly contacted to provide inventories of games for different applications, modify existing games to address specific issues, and is active in developing original games. 

Building upon media reports of the renewed peace between farmers and beavers in western US, a student hourly employee was hired by IWW to develop a board game to gamify the nexus between Beavers, Fish and Farmers using funding from the US Geological Survey Water Resources Research Act, Section 104(b) funds. 

See:

• Online “escape room” game that IWW assisted in designing. Memory Mayhem: A Groundwater Puzzle Game.  
• Serious Gaming in Water article.

Workforce Development - Water

Water resources fields are suffering from a lack of new skilled and qualified technicians, scientists and engineers. The rate at which students and workers are entering these fields is declining and the average age of the workforce is increasing, with more retirements on the horizon. 

Business of Water (ecampus) 

The global water services industry is slated to exceed US$1 trillion in annual revenues. According to the World Economic Forum the global water crisis now tops nuclear weapons as the most serious threat to business and society. IWW is designing a course that will be the third in a series of eCampus courses connecting water and business students in the Water Resources Graduate Program and College of Business with a launch date in 2023 Spring term (class WRP 554). 

Applied Field Methods: Water Cooperation and Diplomacy Program (WRGP) 

Broadening the scope of approach to conflict and diplomacy, provide a more theoretical dimension to conflict, engage multi-level scales of conflict dimensions, and strengthen skills through highly experiential learning opportunities. Link to the Water Cooperation and Diplomacy Program website.

PSU Workforce Development 

This project is using USGS Section 104(b) funding awarded to the UPP: The Partnership Between the USGS and PSU to grow the pipeline of diverse, qualified workers who are prepared for careers in water science through regional partnerships and focused training pathways.