Participants:

Please note: There is no particular priority to any of these ideas, and SWRR does not have the resources to undertake any specific task. Therefore, these suggested activities may only be undertaken should sufficient resources of staff, volunteers and/or funding become available.

Suggestions for Future Work:

SWRR should investigate how to track the ability of human institutions to cope with water resources issues. Institutional capacity is one of the elements SWRR tried to capture in the present indicators, but more is needed. How do we measure decision making capacity?

In addition to measuring consumption, SWRR should document how water is recycled for reuse. This may be most relevant at the geographic scales of city/county or state. This reminds one of the case study in Santee, CA, in which community wastewater has been extensively recycled. Also, the city of Windhoek in Namibia carries out almost 100 percent water recycling in a desert climate. The USGS water use statistics have, at least in the past, tried to document the difference between withdrawals and consumptive use; some work on recycling has been done there.

Water as a property right is important in some Western states. We know this is quite different from the riparian doctrine used elsewhere. There are a host of interesting water issues in such states, most of which are arid to some degree. For example, SWRR should investigate the sustainability considerations when deciding between historic uses (like ranching and agriculture), that have limited ability to pay for water rights, as compared to new uses that come into the region (like energy companies), which can pay high costs for water rights. The historic uses may be more long term, but the new uses claim national attention and high compensation.

SWRR should find ways to study and document the "sense of ownership" that the public feels about water. Access to water is perhaps incorrectly regarded as a "right" when in fact it is not. The sense of irresponsibility may be fostered by underpricing of water, which occurs widely. Efforts are underway to improve conservation at the home or institutional level, and these technical approaches are part of the picture. Some years ago the USGS sponsored a report called "Before the Well Runs Dry," which documented by case studies that only the economics of paying for access to water really reached most users.

SWRR should document unusual parts of the water budget, to aid understanding about where the water goes. For example, reinjection takes water out of the system, at least for some uses. Decisions about how to use artificial recharge correctly can influence sustainability. Maps showing water budget and where the water goes would be helpful.

SWRR should undertake description of issues and indicators that are more geographically focused, as opposed to just the national level. Case studies at the local/state/regional levels would be a good approach. We are aware of the need for this geographic approach (the SWRR paper given at WEFTEC'05 was on this subject), and worked at the national level only for the 2005 report.

In addition to documenting human water needs, SWRR should place increased emphasis on ecological and ecosystem water needs. The 2005 report makes a start on this, but more work is needed. Some SWRR members have also pressed this point.

One future task on the SWRR list is to make contact with the Hill. However, it is also important to contact similar legislative and policy forming institutions at the local/state level, because many decisions are made at those levels that impact sub-national issues.

For research purposes, SWRR should consider a study about human influence on the quantity of water available. There are some examples,e.g., mining ground water in aquifers that cannot later be recharged effectively increases the supply of water. Another poorly documented example might be how industrial chemical processes may change the overall quantity of water in the course of their production of other chemicals.