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While desalination is a globally proven technology, California projects have faced regulatory roadblocks at the state level. A new report from the California Policy Center and Californians for Energy and Water Abundance outlines how the federal government can bypass these hurdles by developing facilities directly on federal coastal lands under the Coastal Zone Management Act…

Floating solar panel projects offer a promising clean energy solution (see TWR #259 for more information on this innovative technology). A new study evaluates potential environmental impacts of these projects and finds that results vary significantly depending on where the systems are deployed.    The floating solar technology offers several key advantages including: Can boost…

  A groundbreaking simulation from Princeton and the University of Arizona reveals that groundwater flow paths travel much farther and deeper than previously understood. By tracking water across 3 million square miles, researchers discovered that raindrops and snowmelt can travel underground for several hundred kilometers and spend up to 100,000 years in the subsurface before…

Researchers from Princeton and the University of Arizona have released the highest-resolution map of US groundwater to date. They have estimated that a total of 306,500 cubic kilometers of groundwater is available – 13 times the capacity of all the Great Lakes combined. Using a machine learning algorithm and more than one million data points,…

The Nature Conservancy in Nevada, DRI, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have launched the Nevada GDE Water Needs Explorer Tool. This online resource helps managers quantify the water requirements of Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) such as meadows, wetlands, and riparian forests. In Nevada’s arid environment, understanding how groundwater levels sustain these habitats is vital for maintaining…

The University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) is now accepting proposals for the federal WRRA grant program. These water research grant opportunities support university-based projects addressing Arizona’s water challenges.   Eligible faculty from Arizona’s three state universities can submit proposals by March 16, 2026 for the WRRA 104(b) program. Selected projects typically receive…

Sea level rise, driven by climate change, significantly increases flood risk for industrial and contaminated sites across the United States. A new study, published in Nature, reveals thousands of hazardous sites could flood in the coming decades. This threat creates a massive challenge for public health and environmental protection, especially in coastal zones.   The…

Two new studies from Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers offer encouraging news about the resilience of California’s beaches.   The 2025 San Diego County Beach Report found most regional beaches gained width last year as they entered a post-El Niño recovery phase. Typically, El Niño years bring larger, more powerful waves that rip sand from…

The Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) Tribal Council recently made history with a unanimous vote that granted legal river personhood status to the Colorado River. CRIT is the first community to bestow such recognition on the 1,450-mile waterway. This action represents a dramatic departure from Western water law, which historically treats rivers as property to…