Our Vision

Equitable, safe and resilient water systems.

The Bay Area One Water Network works for equitable, safe and resilient water systems in California. We share information, build collaborative capacity, and advance the thinking about sustainable water system opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Climate change poses major challenges to the Bay Area’s water supplies. Less snowpack, more erratic precipitation, and rising seas expose the vulnerabilities of our current water infrastructure systems. The Bay Area One Water Network helps innovate solutions to these challenges by bringing together diverse regional stakeholders from water supply and wastewater agencies, stormwater groups, regulatory agencies, city and regional planning groups, businesses, universities, research organizations, community-based organizations and environmental advocacy groups. Through focused workshop discussions and synthesis reports, we aim to provide decision-makers with the contextual information, tools, and research roadmaps that can support the development of 21st century water infrastructure.

In 2019, the Bay Area One Water Network held two in-person workshops: one focused on stormwater capture and use, and the other on water recycling. The participants were thought-leaders, decision-makers and knowledgeable experts from diverse stakeholder groups. The workshops were designed to identify regional challenges and opportunities, to synergize existing efforts, and to strengthen working relationships among the participants. We published two reports that documented the discussions and conclusions from each of the workshops: “Stormwater Capture to Augment Water Supplies in the San Francisco Bay Area: Challenges, Opportunities, and Next Steps” and “Advancing Water Reuse in the San Francisco Bay Area : Integrating Water Reuse into A Regional Approach to Water Management”. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, we pivoted to an online format and held free, publicly accessible webinars reporting out on the 2019 workshops and reports to broaden their reach among practitioners. We also held an online webinar about next steps for the Bay Area One Water Network, which provided foundational information on potential workshop opportunities that would be particularly relevant in the Bay Area going forward.

In 2021, we collaborated with the San Francisco Estuary Partnership to host a roundtable discussion on nature-based solutions for shoreline resilience. The workshop identified key next steps for advancing nature-based solutions that could provide multiple benefits for water quality, wildlife habitat and shoreline access, and climate resilience. Report coming soon!

We are currently planning two workshops for 2022. The first will focus on equitably advancing water conservation in the San Francisco Bay Area. The second will explore potential opportunities for and barriers to brackish water desalination in the Bay Area, with a focus on intersections of healthy ecosystems and disposal of reverse osmosis concentrate.

who we are

Collaborating and building partnerships.

The Bay Area One Water Network is a collaborative effort of the Engineering Research Center for Re-Inventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt), the Berkeley Water Center, the Environmental Protection Agency, and numerous Bay Area water utilities, cities, and counties.

Sponsors