University of California, Berkeley's David Sedlak, PhD, spoke about "Two Visions of the Fourth Revolution in Urban Water" at the National Water Research Institute Clarke Prize Conference, held at Island Hotel in Newport Beach, Calif. on Nov. 15.

As we move through the 21st Century, it's becoming evident that Americans increasingly need to address water issues. On Nov. 15, the National Water Research Institute Clarke Prize Conference featured prize laureates, academics from research universities in California and representatives from local water and wastewater utilities to do just that.

The goal of the conference held at Island Hotel in Newport Beach, Calif. was to focus on identifying, developing and managing sustainable water supplies in the urban setting.

"People don't see a revolution coming in urban water, but there's a variety of forces driving it," said keynote speaker University of California, Berkeley's David Sedlak, PhD. "Change is needed and we're working on it."

Currently we're in the midst of what Sedlak calls Urban Water 3.0 where sewage treatment systems help solve urban water problems. The Clean Water Act led to investments in sewage treatments.

"We've had climate change concerns where the wetter places are getting wetter and the dryer places have been getting dryer," said Sedlak. "We have to deal with resource considerations with the population moving towards the Southwest, California, Texas and Florida. Some of the keys are reducing green house emissions and recovering nutrients from the soil."

University of Iowa's Jerald Schnoor, PhD, spoke about "The Effects of Climate Change and Energy Development on Water Supplies and Water Resources."

"The drivers are population control and climate change," said Schnoor. "We've seen a rise in worldwide temperature of 0.8 degrees Celsius over the past 150 years. These warmer temperatures cause shifts in precipitation. This leads to increases in extremes with catastrophic events with too little water in droughts and too much water with floods."

Microbial control in water treatment, has helped life span expectancy in this country increasd from 47 in 1900 to 76 in 2000 for men, said Rice University's Pedro Alvarez, PhD. Biofouling is one of the biggest responsive particles for selective biocide delivery.