Solution Area - Water
The Water Solution Area is focused on efforts to improve water quality, enhance water efficiency, and extend water resources through combinations of innovative technologies and policies.
Co-Chairs: Bill Mitch & Felicia Marcus
Funding phase: Planning Grants awarded, Integrative Project RFP coming Fall 2026
FloodTrace: Community-Centered Water Quality Monitoring in Urbanizing Tropical Settlements
Floods transport more than water, they carry contamination- mixing sewage, chemicals, and pathogens with local water supplies. In rapidly urbanizing tropical cities such as Leticia (Colombia), Chiang Saen (Thailand), and Diani (Kenya), seasonal and climate-driven flooding regularly compromises access to safe water. This planning grant lays the groundwork for a community-led early warning system pairing environmental sensors and eDNA-based pathogen detection with a mobile reporting app, enabling residents to document flooding and water quality risks in real time to inform decision making at the individual, community and policy levels on water conditions and build toward a scalable tool to safeguard safe water access.
PI: Desiree LaBeaud, Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases), Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health and of Environmental Social Sciences
Co-PIs: Elliott White, Jr., Assistant Professor of Earth System Science and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Alexandria Boehm, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies, Professor of Oceans and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, Associate Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Abby King, David and Susan Heckerman Professor and Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health and of Medicine (Stanford Prevention Research Center), Maxine Burkett, Emerson Collective Professor of Climate, Environment, and Society
Distributed Water Service Delivery Models for Rapidly Urbanizing Regions
The next billion people will virtually all be born in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and 90% of them will live in urban and peri-urban areas. Current models for delivering centralized infrastructure services in these urban centers are failing under current high growth rates. This proposal aims to clarify and validate core hypotheses about barriers to distributed water infrastructure deployment in these regions and builds toward an integrative project identifying country / region specific combinations of electrified treatment trains, solar power supply systems, business models, and governance structures that make distributed potable water service sustainable in rapidly urbanizing sub-Saharan regions.
PI: Carlos Diaz Marin, Assistant Professor of Energy Science and Engineering, and Center Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
Co-PIs: Jenna Davis, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, of Environmental Social Sciences and Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, Meagan Mauter, Associate Professor Civil & Environmental Engineering, of Photon Science, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy and Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering, William Mitch, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yaochun Yu, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Connecting Rural Water Security to Bofedal Ecosystem Dynamics in the Andean Puna
Bofedales are high-elevation, peat-forming wetlands that store and gradually release water, sustaining downstream flows across the Andean Puna during the dry season. A key challenge for potable water security in the rural Andes is determining what proportion of downstream supplies come from these wetlands, and how degradation affects local and downstream water availability, especially as bofedales face climatic and anthropogenic pressures. This project will identify watersheds where degradation and water dependence intersect, develop methods for quantifying bofedales' downstream water contribution through remote sensing and in-situ hydrological analysis, and initiate deeper engagement with community-based knowledge to inform governance structures.
PI: Elliott White, Jr., Assistant Professor of Earth System Science and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Co-PI: Khalid Osman, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Center Fellow, by courtesy, at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Integrating Water and Land Use Planning for Resilient Urban Water Supply
Water demand in cities is fundamentally shaped by land use decisions about the volume and type of urban development. Housing policy is water policy. However, water and land use planning are implemented in separate silos. Our project aims to reshape urban water supply planning by developing the first generation of analytical tools and policy frameworks for deep, quantitative integration with urban planning.
PI: Sarah Fletcher, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Co-PI: Jenna Davis, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, of Environmental Social Sciences and Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute
Apply for a Solution Area - Integrative Projects grant
Stanford faculty may learn how to engage with the Solution Area communities and grant process through the school’s Faculty Funding Opportunities on the intranet or reach out to Sarah Sandoval.