Author(s): Gregory Pierce, Lauren Dunlap, and others
Funder: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)
In the wake of catastrophic firestorms in L.A., LADWP and UCLA convened more than 100 academic, industry, and government stakeholders to answer a critical question: How can LADWP help build a more resilient city by adopting new and emerging technologies and strategies? The one-day, intensive workshop provided a venue for open, timely information sharing and advanced collaborative efforts to spur innovation in four key areas: advanced metering infrastructure, utility undergrounding, water distribution system infrastructure, and wildfire risk assessment.
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Researcher(s): Edith B. de Guzman, Gregory Pierce, Jennifer Gorman, Lauren Dunlap, Michael Rincon, Itzel Vasquez-Rodriguez, and Vivian Cruz
Southern California has a complex network of 663 drinking water systems across six counties: Los Angeles, Kern, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura. Together, these utilities serve 40 percent of California’s population. Developed in coordination with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Luskin Center for Innovation’s report and companion mapping tool provide the most comprehensive public resource on water systems, shedding light on disparities in water quality, affordability, governance, and climate resilience.
Researchers: Gregory Pierce, Ariana Hernandez, Grace Harrison, Edith de Guzman, and colleagues
In January 2025, L.A. County experienced multiple fast-moving fires that began as wildland events but quickly spread into residential areas, destroying homes and critical infrastructure. This report provides an early assessment of the Palisades and Eaton fires’ impacts on local water systems, focusing on damage to infrastructure, service disruptions, and the unique vulnerabilities of the affected communities.
Researchers: Michael Rincon, Gregory Pierce, and Lauren Dunlap
Environmental justice advocates, academics, and other stakeholders have raised concerns about the equity, justice, and water use implications of expanding hydrogen’s role in the energy system. The authors discuss potential water-related pitfalls, challenges, and open questions surrounding green hydrogen in California.
Authors: Gregory Pierce, Edith de Guzman, and Megan Mullin
Three major implications stemming from the water supply narratives around the Los Angeles fires have emerged: the need for greater infrastructure resilience, considering the uneven costs of new expectations, and combating disinformation.
Do Urban Water Supply Systems Put Out Wildfires? (Frequently Asked Questions in English and Español 2025)
Authors: Gregory Pierce, Faith Kearns, Silvia González, Lauren Dunlap
This FAQ about wildfires provides clear, accurate answers to the most common questions we heard from the public, media, and policymakers about fire hydrants, firefighting, water infrastructure, and more after the devastating LA wildfires in 2025.
Researchers: Nicolas Chow, Gregory Pierce, Benjamin Bass, Naomi Goldenson, Adam Barsch, David Kong, Alex Hall, JR DeShazo
We developed a model to analyze the economic and resiliency value of investing in wastewater recycling infrastructure to create a new local, sustainable clean drinking water source. This analysis can inform broader planning efforts in the U.S. and beyond.
Authors: Edith B. de Guzman and Gregory Pierce
Funders: LA region participating utilities
This report is the result of convening an independent group of technical experts and facilitating a collaborative process to secure guidance on how to optimize wastewater recycling projects in the LA region. Eight specific recommendations are provided.
Researchers: Nicholas Chow, JR DeShazo, Omar Moghaddam
This research explores the energy intensities to implement an advanced water treatment process, specifically for direct potable reuse, and seeks to inform decision-makers on important considerations facing water managers, energy managers, and environmental actors. This study uses the County of Los Angeles as a case study to quantitatively examine the water, energy, and greenhouse gas tradeoffs of utilizing different water supply sources.
Researchers: Gregory Pierce, Jon Christensen, Mike Antos, Peter Poquemore, Hayat Rasul, Estefany Garcia
This report provides advice to LA County to strengthen the equity outcomes of the Safe Clean Water Program. Community engagement is key to cleaning and strengthening the local water supply and building disadvantaged community resilience.
Researchers: Emily V. Bell, Amanda Fencl, Megan Mullin
This research examined participation by water service providers in collaborative planning forums. Researchers find: that participation in regional water planning is associated with perceived risk to water supply from changing climatic conditions, but not with perceived risk from changing patterns of demand.
Managing stormwater is an important task for cities, and some methods to do so are “greener” than others. This study examines how local water professionals choose among different stormwater management options. In particular, what leads them to prioritize green infrastructure stormwater management options that provide wider benefits to ecosystems and society (such as rain gardens)? This survey of stormwater professionals from Cleveland and Denver revealed two patterns. First, water managers’ top priorities align with federal requirements for their cities. Second, managers’ other priorities align with their values. The upshot: the local leaders who most value the environment are most likely to choose “green” stormwater options that further urban greening goals.
Who is making decisions about local tap water systems? To improve water governance transparency, we launched the Los Angeles County Water Governance Mapping Tool, in collaboration with the Water Foundation. The interactive tool lets users find out about water cost and affordability, system safety, and quality. It also shows who is making decisions about local resources, including their demographics to how much they’re paid. The information the tool provides can help communities advocate for just, equitable access to clean and affordable drinking water — and move into decision-making roles themselves.
Recent years have shown that wildfires can have complex and severe effects on water systems. This report brings together insights from 23 water and fire experts to answer a critical question: How can California proactively protect its water supply from fires? By compiling and building on the results of a 2021 workshop, the report presents recommendations to help build an understanding of the complex relationship between fires and water systems. This project was a joint effort by LCI and the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources California Institute for Water Resources; it was funded by the U.S. Geological Survey through the California Institute for Water Resources.
Researcher: Megan Mullin
This discussion of the local political economy of drinking water provision reveals the constraints on community water systems that affect their performance when confronting drought hazards. Fragmentation in responsibility for drinking water contributes to disparities in drought vulnerability, preparation, and response across households and communities.
By: Gregory Pierce, Nicholas Chow, Kyra Gmoser-Daskalakis, Peter Roquemore, and Nichole Heil
As many water systems consider investing in new or enhanced sources of water supply to meet their own water security goals, it is more important than ever to assess the household-level Human Right to Water (HRW) impacts of these investments. This report analyzes the likely impacts of one proposed strategy for greater local water security on environmental justice and HRW concerns in Orange County.
LCI researchers examined the likely impact of desalinated ocean water supply on the county’s disadvantaged households based on a proposed agreement for Poseidon Resources LLC (Poseidon) to sell 56,000 acre-feet of desalinated ocean water per year to the Orange County Water District for 30 years. This report assesses the potential agreement in the context of a broader suite of water security and local water reliance strategies currently being pursued by nearly all major water suppliers across the Southern California region. This analysis can be used not only to inform public knowledge regarding the likely impacts of the Poseidon agreement but also to evaluate the costs and benefits of various water security and local water reliance strategies in similarly water-scarce regions.
Authors: J.R. DeShazo, Kelsey Jessup, and Ali Panjwani
During a historic drought that started in 2011, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power increased, to $1.75 per square foot, the rate that property owners could receive for replacing turf with more drought-resistant landscaping. A study by LCI answered two questions: Under what conditions does participation in the turf replacement program provide financial benefits to households? And is the turf replacement program a reasonably cost-effective investment for utilities and ratepayers?
Researchers used data accumulated from 2009 until 2015, during which time the City of Los Angeles spent more than $42 million on the turf replacement program. In partnership with the Metropolitan Water District, the city issued rebates for 15 million square feet of turf, saving approximately 66,000 gallons of water a year. To assess the economics of lawn replacement from the household perspective, the report measured the impact of different rebate levels, turf replacement costs, climate zones, and future expected water pricing on household financial benefits. Rebates of $1.75 result in a payback period for typical households and ratepayers of approximately 10 years, comparable to other investments such as solar. The report also calculated the payback periods for ratepayers based on varying levels of household participation in the turf replacement program and different levels of rebates.
Authors: Zita L.T. Yu, Anditya Rahardianto, J.R. DeShazo, Michael K. Stenstrom, and Yoram Cohen
Researchers reviewed graywater reuse regulations and guidelines within the U.S. The study found that regulations in the majority of states promote safe graywater reuse but that there are also inconsistencies between plumbing codes and other regulations within and among the 50 states. Easing restrictions and new guidelines to promote the development of low-cost and proven treatment technologies are needed to better promote greywater reuse.
In a related study, researchers performed a cost-benefit analysis of onsite residential graywater recycling, using Los Angeles as a case study. The authors compared a low-cost, wetland treatment system with a high-cost commercial treatment system to evaluate cost savings. The researchers found that commercial treatment options may be economically feasible only for multi-family dwellings with high water consumption. For single-family residences, a wetland treatment system was found to be cost-effective based on the amount of non-potable water generally consumed by these households.
