The Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable: A Self-Generated Multi-Stakeholder Process and Its Work

Water will remain a central issue for the sustainability of societies, ecosystems and economies around the world for the rest of our lives. Yet, in the United States and elsewhere, no single organization has the mission or mandate to address the full spectrum of water resource issues. The resultant fragmentation of responsibility brought about the formation of the Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable (SWRR). To make clear how broad water resource sustainability issues are, I will present examples of how we in SWRR attempt to raise awareness of the importance of water sustainability. We start with the "big picture" of water on Earth then the point is made simply that there are four main pressing issues related to water sustainability that vary with place: 1) Many places don't have enough water to meet current and projected uses, 2) Many places occasionally have far too much water, 3) Many places have dirty water, and 4) Many places are a water habitat. To address these areas and study their interrelationships, the SWRR brings together participants from federal, state, and local governments, corporations, non-profits and academia to advance the knowledge and decision-making needed to sustain the nation's water resources. Just as the participants in SWRR represent a wide range of interests and responsibilities related to water resources, we hope that SWRR's work is useful to a wide and diverse audience. To this end, participation in SWRR by interested people and organizations is encouraged.