WIP Editorial

1. WEFTEC 2025: Water Sector Pivots Toward Resilience, AI, And Circularity 10/7/2025

   From technology breakthroughs to operator excellence, this year’s event showed water’s future is already flowing.

2. How AI Can Solve The "Silver Tsunami" And Support Small Water Utilities 10/3/2025
   While far from prolific, applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the water and wastewater industry are nothing new. AI and machine learning have been used for data analytics for years. However, for small utilities and those with an aging workforce, these tools seem too high tech and costly to be practical. This doesn’t have to be the case, though. AI tools — particularly generative AI (Gen AI) and large language models (LLMs) — are able to address critical workforce shortages and resource constraints within the water and wastewater industry.
3. Extracting Water From Air: A Historical And Military Perspective 9/23/2025

   In the early 2000s, I was consulting for a military contractor on expanding their mobile water treatment system for military applications. As part of that work, I researched other water supply technologies used by the U.S. military, including atmospheric water generation (AWG) — the process of extracting potable water directly from the air.

4. What Water Utilities Need To Know About Climate Adaptation 9/18/2025
   No one knows more than water utilities how changing climate conditions are impacting the challenges and costs of delivering clean drinking water to communities they serve. In a recent episode of The Water Online Show, climate experts Jesse M. Keenan from Tulane University and Edgar Westerhof of Arcadis discussed the issue of resiliency for drinking water and wastewater systems.
5. Securing Smart Water 9/5/2025

   The digital transformation of utilities is necessary and inevitable but also innately vulnerable to bad actors. It's time to discuss prioritizing cybersecurity.

6. Megadroughts Are Here To Stay, And U.S. Water Utilities Need To Adapt 9/2/2025
   Researchers warn that California and other states affected by megadroughts — periods of drought lasting 20+ years — will have to accept this as the new normal. That means rethinking the water cycle and finding new, more sustainable water sources.
7. Applying AI To Water And Wastewater Operations 8/26/2025

   AI is rapidly moving from hype to high-impact results in the water sector. In this Water Online Live event, DC Water’s Dr. Robert Bornhofen and consultant Gigi Karmous-Edwards joined Chief Editor Kevin Westerling to share how utilities are putting AI to work today, spotlighting real-world applications and research-backed use cases while also addressing concerns such as cybersecurity, data governance, and workforce implications.

8. AI's Water Problem Is Worse Than You Think (But It Doesn't Have To Be) 8/4/2025
   There's little doubt that AI is quickly becoming a powerful if not essential tool in our society. It's being used to help boost efficiencies and productivity in myriad ways — including for the research portion of this article. However, this productivity doesn't come for free. One of the biggest costs associated with AI is its demand for water.
9. Freshwater Disappearing At Alarming Rate: Study 7/31/2025

   Using NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data, new research shows that areas experiencing drying have been expanding at a dangerous rate since 2002, depleting available drinking water for 75% of the world's population and contributing to rising sea levels.

10. A New Power Paradigm For Wastewater Utilities? 7/3/2025

    Renewable energy is great for the environment. Are power purchase agreements great for wastewater treatment operations?