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UC Water Part of White House Summit

March 22, 2016

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy hosts a water summit today featuring 200 organizations that are committed to conservation and adaptation, including the UC Water Security and Sustainability Research Initiative (UC Water), headquartered at UC Merced.

The summit is designed to raise awareness of water issues and potential solutions in the United States, and to catalyze ideas and actions to help build a sustainable and secure water future through innovative science and technology.

UC Water is a multi-campus effort to address water information, institutions and infrastructure research. The initiative includes researchers (professors, staff and students) from six UC campuses: Merced, Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and San Diego.

Information provided by UC Water is included in the fact report for summit participants.

The summit is taking place on what is also UN World Water Day. Part of it will be archived on UC Water’s YouTube channel for later viewing.

UC Water is committing to develop, by 2018, an integrated water-accounting system. The system will include a new basis for managing groundwater by using a novel combination of conventional groundwater-level data and modeling tools that will be disseminated to hundreds of water managers by 2017, including those in 127 California state-defined groundwater basins.

The formation of effective, fair groundwater agencies to implement California’s 2014 forward-looking groundwater act may be the most important thing we do this year to provide a secure and sustainable water future for generations to come,” said UC Merced Professor Roger Bales, co-director of UC Water.

Lorena Anderson

Senior Writer and Public Information Representative

Office: (209) 228-4406

Mobile: (209) 201-6255

landerson4@ucmerced.edu