So what is a water
center, anyway?
IWRC is part of the National Institute of Water
Resources, which is made of 54 water centers in all 50 states and US
territories. Water centers are typically run out of land grant universities and
are usually headed by faculty at that university. The water centers were
founded in 1964 by the U.S. Congress to address the growing need for water
research and development in the United States. Keep in mind that this was well
before the Clean Water Act and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, so
this left the U.S. Geological Survey all alone to do the nation’s water
research and monitoring. Consequently, the water centers were a shiny new
research effort that were addressing the big problems of the day, like how to
clean up water pollution (take a look at our archives to see the
breadth of the projects IWRC supported in the early days).
Water centers came under
the direction of USGS in the 1980s and continue to receive some federal support
to maintain a federal-state partnership. We here in Illinois are run out the
same office (and staff) as the Illinois-Indiana
Sea Grant, which means we get to
enjoy great collaborations on research without having to leave our office.
What does a water
center do?
The water centers are intended to increase water knowledge
and help young scientists and engineers enter water-focused careers. While this
varies from center to center, one thing we all do is provide a small grants
program out of our base funds. IWRC has titled this program Annual
Small Grants, and these grants have resulted in some very interesting projects.
Additionally, all water centers provide researchers in their state access to
larger grants through the National Competitive Grants program run by the USGS.
While the Sequester resulted in no National Competitive Grant awards this year,
IWRC has sponsored many funded projects
in the past.
So is IWRC only
interested in research?
Besides research funding, IWRC performs outreach and
education and liaises with national organizations on Illinois’ behalf. Every
two years, we host an Illinois Water
conference, which allows anyone interested in water from around the state to
present research, share ideas, and make connections. We also host the Private Well Class, which helps
well owners safely manage their water supplies, and SmallWaterSupply.org, which provides
reliable information for small municipal and tribal water suppliers.
Some new outreach we’ve done this year include planning a
drought workshop as part of a professor’s outreach requirements in his grant
and some classroom
visits to discuss stormwater and recycling. We’ve also sought to make this
blog and our twitter feeds a constant source of information and news about
Illinois’ water resources and opportunities. If you have ideas of projects we
could help you with or have an item you’d like us to highlight, please contact us. We love to hear
the water news in Illinois, and we really love to share it.
