ASCE has honored the writing team of Richard G. Luthy, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE; Jordyn M. Wolfand, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE; and Jonathan Bradshaw with the 2022 Rudolph Hering Medal for the paper “Urban Water Revolution: Sustainable Water Futures for California Cities,” Journal of Environmental Engineering July 2020.
In this work, the researchers examine California’s water history and present several promising solutions to the challenge of urban water security: a combination of conservation and efficiency, desalination, stormwater capture, water resuse, and water banking. These options for urban water, including direct potable resuse, will help dry cities in California and elsewhere achieve more sustainable and diversified water supply portfolios. Pilot and demonstration-scale projects, along with innovations in systems management and new regulations, point the way to more resilient water supplies for dry cities. Movement toward regional collaboration, implementation of new technologies, and new regulatory regimes are helping to realize a one-water vision. Different cities will develop their own water supply portfolio options appropriate for their geography, values, and urban form on a path to meeting the urban water challenges of this century.
The Rudolph Hering Medal recognizes outstanding papers that contribute to the advancement of the environmental branch of the engineering profession.
