Report on Water Quality in Southwestern Pennsylvania: Knowledge Gaps and Approaches from Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory, released October 2019.

As Southwestern Pennsylvania continues to evolve from its industrial past to become a national leader in innovation and sustainability, it has encountered a complex set of water challenges that threaten the economy, ecology, and public health of the region.

The Pittsburgh Collaboratory for Water Research, Education, and Outreach at the University of Pittsburgh has been holding a series of consensus-building meetings among regional academic scholars, community groups, governmental, and non-governmental organizations.  These meetings (one each on green infrastructure, water quality, and flooding) aim to identify key regional knowledge gaps and chart a collaborative research agenda to fill these gaps and enhance the region’s ability to strategically and creatively solve water problems.

The second report in this series Water Quality: Knowledge Gaps & Approaches, was released in October 2019.  This report outlines several fundamental knowledge gaps in the region (i.e., changing chemical waste,  unexpected consequences of emerging chemicals, and the effects of “legacy” contamination) and suggests methods to span these gaps with new collaborative research.; results were from an January 28, 2019 meeting.

Other reports in this series include:

• Green Infrastructure and Stormwater Management: : Knowledge Gaps and Approaches (June 2019)
• Flooding in Southwestern Pennsylvania: Knowledge Gaps and Approaches (February 2020)