On March 8-9, 2005, the CSIS Global Strategy Institute in conjunction with Sandia National Laboratories hosted leading experts and leaders in the government, private sector, and nongovernmental organizations for a discussion on innovative technological approaches to managing the world's water resources and the role of the United States in developing and deploying these strategies. The workshop was the second of two workshops aimed at identifying areas in which the United States can innovate in the way it formulates its international water policy and in the way it deploys technologies.

The basic framework of this first workshop explored currently available and over-the-horizon technologies, strategies for ensuring long-term sustainability, and the drivers of technological development and delivery. The following summaries highlight the main ideas heard from the speakers and panels with links to transcripts. For more information regarding the Global Water Futures project, please contact Laura Keating by email at LKeating@csis.org or by phone at (202) 775-3232.

DAY ONE: March 8, 2005

Ambassador C. Paul Robinson, Sandia National Laboratories
Ambassador Robinson kicked off the conference and introduced Senator Domenici by exploring the potential for both cooperation and conflict over water resources.

Senator Pete V. Domenici*
Senator Domenici's remarks began by stating four viewpoints on why the United States should engage on international water issues, including peace and national security, economic prosperity, human and ecological health, and democracy and human rights. These same four points govern U.S. international policy. The Senator went on to discuss the relationship between technology and water by highlighting the similarities between domestic and international water problems and the role of the U.S. federal government in research and development.

*Senator Domenici was unavoidably detained and was not able to attend the conference. His prepared remarks were read by Erik Webb, Congressional Fellow for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Panel One: Available and Future Technologies
Tom Hinkebein, Sandia National Laboratories
Susan Murcott, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Judith Barry, Alliance to Save Energy
Jim Phene, Netafim

The first panel helped define several "what" questions, including: What is the current state of water technologies? What are the public and private sectors doing to address critical water policy issues such as increasing supply, reducing demand, and managing competition over limited water resources? What is the relationship between water and energy? And, what over-the-horizon technologies can we expect to come online in the next decade?

Water technologies aim to make water clean, available, sustainable, economical, and to provide energy efficiently. These technologies exist on a sliding scale from the simplest, point-of-use water treatment or storage devices to the highly sophisticated, large scale systems. Panel members discussed membrane technologies, reverse osmosis and other desalinization prospects, household water treatment systems (HWTS) including filtration, disinfection, coagulation, and chemical removal systems, monitoring technologies and remote sensing to improve energy efficiencies, and subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). Feasibilities for each of these technologies lie in their relative ease of use, practicality for a given situation, and cost. Experts from the private, public, non-profit, and academic sectors are all working to develop and deliver innovative solutions toward these ends.

Panel Two: Developing, Delivering and Making It Work
Alessandro Palmieri, World Bank
Joe Cotruvo, Joseph Cotruvo & Associates
Yasmina Zaidman, Acumen Fund
Erik Mintz, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Susan Murcott, MIT

As experience has shown, relying purely on technology or engineering to address the problems of available, safe water supplies will rarely lead to a sustainable solution. Panel two discussed elements and strategies for making technological approaches to water supply and sanitation concerns in the developing world successful.

Decentralized solutions are proven to achieve long-term sustainability for projects as diverse as large-scale infrastructure expansion to point-of-use water treatment systems. Local knowledge and ingenuity inputted into the design, manufacturing, pricing, marketing, and distribution or implementation phases reach higher success rates because they address the problems or issues specific to the community. Ample opportunities exist for international organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, private corporations, foreign assistance programs, and national governments to partner with individuals or local organizations by lending their technical knowledge or financial support. Effective strategies for scaling up these localized solutions remain unclear.

DAY TWO: March 9, 2005

Senator Jeff Bingaman
Senator Bingaman opened the morning session of the second day by identifying three obvious reasons why the United States must play a more active role in sustaining the future global water supply – (1) humanitarian concerns that have reached crisis proportions, (2) a geopolitical risk stemming from rising scarcities, and (3) the unique abilities of the United States to take the lead on technology-based solutions. For any measure of greater involvement to occur the United States desperately needs to develop its own national water policy and create the necessary institutions to bring about national changes in water use and consumption levels. Drawing from the experience of shared water sources across the U.S.-Mexico border, it has become clear that any effort to improve the sustainability of water supply must include measures to fund scientific and technology-based solutions. Together with improved measurements of current and projected water capacity, these solutions will allow for increased transboundary cooperation as well as an improved capability to predict how global climate change will affect the distribution of global freshwater supplies.

Robert Ayers, Senior Vice President, ITT Industries, and President, ITT Fluid Technology
Mr. Ayers reinforced Senator Bingaman's comments by emphasizing that the answer to the world's water supply shortages cannot be solved by a "one-size fits all" technological solution. Instead, a multitude of technologies will need to be developed that can provide equally effective breakthroughs, workarounds, and advancements in order to meet the requirements for sustainable development, water scarcity and water quality. Historically sustainable development initiatives have been event driven. Mr. Ayers urged that today sustainable development must be thought of as an ongoing process. Past programs that have been short-sighted and overly focused on short-term gains have stood in the way of the development of sustainable water supplies. Mr. Ayers concluded by emphasizing that the world will best be able to solve the water crisis through investment in technology combined with new public-private partnerships. To further encourage the formulation of public-private partnerships, research incentives from the federal government need to be increased in order to develop new smaller, workaround solutions that can be deployed at the local level.

Panel Three: Drivers of Technological Innovation
Hank Habicht, Global Environment and Technology Foundation
Henry Vaux, Jr., University of California
Greg Allgood, Procter & Gamble

The third panel covered the dynamics between the public and private sectors with regards to technological innovation and implementation. Forces pushing technological development in each sector are distinct and determine its role in alleviating global water shortages and quality concerns. However, in order to reach the magnitude of future problems, new forces brought about by new frameworks will be required to bring the public and private sectors together. New financing mechanisms, business models and approaches, and adequate, targeted public expenditures will help foster a shared understanding of the problem as well as the necessary people and tools to address the problem.