The BWC mission encompases the following:

• Vision
• Resources
• Leadership
• Our Plan

1. Vision

• What is the vision for the Center? Water is the central theme in human health and improvement in the quality of life in California, the United States and world-wide. Water in all its forms of vapor, clouds, liquid and ice determines climate, agriculture, settlement, sanitation, conflict, recreation, and ecosystem dynamics. The Berkeley Water Center will take a comprehensive approach to water resources management that reflects the conditions being faced in the 21st Century with variable and uncertain supply, increasing demand, and inadequate structural and institutional infrastructure. California is a test bed for studying water resources since conditions experienced in California are faced by other expanding regions and nations, but probably not with the same level of resources.
  • What are the outcomes investigators are seeking? Advancements in water resources management happen slowly through an integration of new scientific understanding of the hydrologic cycle in highly managed regions merged with advanced instrumentation and models for measuring and predicting future conditions over time scales of days to decades. Water resources as a field of study requires legal, economic, ecologic, and individual and group behavioral dimensions, and these determine how regions respond more so than advances in science and technology. The Berkeley Water Center seeks to demonstrate the application of these new tools in an institutionally complex setting that characterizes the State of California which is similar to other regions such as Florida, New England, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. Since institutional change is slow, the approach will be focused, fundamental and documented for demonstration of generality.
  • What impact will this have on society? The State of California and the Nation as a whole have realized that the infrastructure put in place decades ago for its citizens is not longer sufficient for the increasing population and possible changing climatic conditions. While the needs are recognized from infrequent catastrophic events, change in water resources management comes slowly through demonstrations of new approaches at local and regional scales that provide assurances that the tools successfully improve water management. The Berkeley Water Center has chosen a few selected agricultural regions for its initial efforts since irrigated agriculture uses approximately 80 percent of the managed water in the State and small improvements in efficiency have dramatic results. Water use devoted to agriculture has chaotically declined in response to infrequent events such as droughts and contaminants. Demonstration of a long-term plan to manage this transition will demonstrate to the State that continued economic and population growth will not be constrained by the availability of water.
  The economy of California is utterly dependent on the ability to wheel large quantities of water for urban consumption and agricultural use. If water becomes a limiting factor on economic growth, the consequences could be severe. California produces roughly $1.4 trillion in goods and services annually while consuming 36 million acre-feet of water in an average year, implying an average value of water close to $40,000 per acre-foot. Thus, management reforms or improvements in efficiency that free just one million acre-feet annually (roughly three percent of total water use) can support a $40 billion in future economic activity.
• How is Berkeley positioned to excel in this research/collaboration? The campus through its long term planning of infrastructure and academic programs has recognized the importance of contiguity. There is no subject more in need of an integrated approach than water resources management. Research collaborations happen face to face between faculty and within classroom populated by students with broad disciplinary perspectives. Physical opportunities for these meetings have always been possible, but through the hiring of new faculty colleagues having interdisciplinary training and collaborative efforts by the Institute for the Environment, there are now the initial stages of faculty participation in these broader initiatives. In addition, nearby Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory brings with it expertise in fundamental science, computational resources, and a long-term commitment to working with the campus on mutually beneficial efforts such as this initiative.

2. Resources

• What existing campus or sponsored resources will be leveraged to fulfill academic or research ambitions? The BWC is sponsored by several academic and organized research units on Campus and at the Berkeley Lab. These units are providing seed funding to BWC. Substantial computational resources were made available to the Center by DOE’s National Energy Research Super Computer Center.
  • What is the time frame required? A five-year period is required to achieve some initial successes in demonstrating a comprehensive approach to water resources management.

3. Leadership

• What is the leadership model for this project/collaboration? The Berkeley Water Center has three co-directors who have worked well together for over 10 years. Rubin brings expertise from science and engineering, Sunding has a background in natural resources with training in economics of water resources, and Miller has expertise developing and implementing conceptual and numerical models of the Earth system, hydroclimate, and water resources impacts.
  • Who is primarily accountable for its success? How will its success be measured? The Center’s directors have the primary responsibility for the BWC’s success that will be initially measured by the number of successful collaborations and ultimately by the expansion of research, teaching and outreach efforts in water with new faculty hires in existing campus units and the possible formation of a graduate group in water.

4. Our Plan

Effective water management is not purely a scientific problem, a political problem, a technological problem, a computer science problem nor a socioeconomic problem; it is a complex, 21st Century problem that demands collaborative coordination between all of these disciplines. The Berkeley Water Center has been developed to integrate expertise across disciplines in support of a new research mode for water investigations. Our plan calls for:

• Developing a seamless integration of LBNL and UCB expertise and apply the expertise to water problems;
• Developing Research Thrust Areas (RTAs) that integrate Berkeley water expertise within those areas,
• Creating collaborative opportunities between Berkeley Water Center and other expert groups and resources;
• Creating strong, mutually beneficial partnerships between Berkeley and other academic, governmental, and private sector institutions.
• Accelerating development of RTA research results into applications through strategic partnerships;