Leadership
White House Taps Private Sector for ‘Moonshot for Water’

The White House on Tuesday announced a new public-private water innovation strategy aimed at addressing the impacts of climate change on the use and supply of the nation’s water resources.

The strategy, known informally as the “moonshot for water” calls for an aggressive two-part approach led by federal agencies, and enlists the private sector and other stakeholder groups to help significantly scale up research and investment in water efficiency solutions.

The first part involves boosting water sustainability and long-term water security by increasing use of water-efficient and -reuse technologies. By continuing to support efforts by businesses, industries and communities to make efficient use of water — focusing on water-stressed regions — and through better management practices and technology, the U.S. could reduce water usage by 33 percent, The White House says.

This would bring the U.S. closer in line with other industrialized nations, and could reduce the nation’s total carbon emissions by about 1.5 percent annually.

The second part of the strategy calls for promoting and investing in breakthrough research and development that will reduce the price, energy costs and emissions requirements of new water supply technology to achieve “pipe parity” in the next decade. High costs currently prohibit most communities from turning non-traditional water sources like seawater or brackish water into fresh water, The White House says.

Through new ambitious technical targets for cost-competitive new supplies of water from nontraditional sources, the U.S. can reach “pipe parity,” meaning costs equal to those from current processes for delivering fresh water. The technical targets include reducing the cost by four times, reducing electricity usage by three times and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by two times.

The White House is calling for commitments from private sector and stakeholder groups to advance innovation and technology for potential solutions to water issues so that sufficient water is available when and where it is needed. On March 22, 2016, the United Nation’s World Water Day, President Obama will bring representatives from federal, state, regional, local and tribal governments together with private sector and other stakeholder groups to the White House to discuss ways in which the public-private water innovation strategy is making progress in this area.

A new Center for Natural Resources Investment also has been launched at the Department of the Interior, which will promote increased private investment in water infrastructure and facilitate locally-led water exchange agreements in the western United States. Robust, interconnected infrastructure and functional market institutions, like water banks, can increase the resilience of water supplies and enable and drive additional investment in conservation technologies.

To help spur innovation, The White House announced a new funding opportunity for over $20 million in water and energy efficiency grants through the WaterSMART Water and Energy Efficiency Grant Program at the Department of the Interior. Funding will be awarded for projects that conserve and use water more efficiently, increase the use of renewable energy, improve energy efficiency, benefit endangered and threatened species, facilitate water markets, carry out activities to address climate-related impacts on water or prevent any water-related crisis or conflict.

Water scarcity has become a major concern in many drought-afflicted states, such as California. However, a recent report by NASA found that the Golden State might find some respite from its years long drought, thanks to this year’s El Niño. Atmospheric rivers — significant sources of rainfall — tend to intensify during El Niño events, and this year's strong El Niño likely will bring more precipitation to California and some relief for the drought. As El Niño continues to intensify, it is expected that global drought losses will surpass the current forecast $8 billion in economic damage, according to a report by Aon Benfield, the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of risk management firm Aon.