USC University of Southern California
USC University of Southern California is a university that is part of the pulse of the water sector. Here we bring together everything it publishes on Smart Water Magazine: its news, its blogs and the events it takes part in.
Research on vanishing coastlines in Egypt offers solutions for protecting coastal cities
A new USC study reveals a dramatic surge in building collapses in the ancient Egyptian port city of Alexandria, directly linked to rising sea levels and seawater intrusion. Once a rare occurrence, building collapses in Alexandria — one of the world’s oldest cities, often called the “bride of the Mediterranean” for its beauty — have […]
Could Africa’s largest water dispute be avoided with open science?
One of the biggest conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Africa is brewing over natural resources. In this case—the water from the Nile River and how upstream damming affects the countries Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, and their share of water and hydropower. A new article in Communications Earth & Environment provides a scientific framework for operating the Nile's […]
Beach erosion will make Southern California coastal living five times more expensive by 2050
The region’s sandy coastlines are vanishing at an alarming rate. It’s a warning sign for coastal communities worldwide, USC research suggests.
A new era for an ancient river
The largest river restoration project in U.S. history is underway along the Klamath River. One aging hydroelectric dam along the river's Lower Basin was decommissioned last fall, and three more are being removed this year. The $500 million Klamath Project marks a significant reversal in U.S. water management history, restoring the river to its natural […]
Airborne technology brings new hope to map shallow aquifers in Earth’s most arid deserts
Airborne-sounding radars can perform comprehensive mapping within a few hours compared to existing in-situ methods that would take a few years.
“We must confront the existential crisis of climate change by recognizing it as a water crisis”
The global challenge of securing access to safe drinking water is urgent. Presently, approximately two billion people lack access to this essential resource, and projections indicate that by 2050, this figure will surge to five billion. Faced with this situation, the United Nations ensured that global water safety become a priority in the 2030 Agenda […]
CA, AZ, NV universities form consortium for clean water access and sustainability
A novel collaboration among the University of Southern California (USC), the University of Arizona (UA), and the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), has resulted in the Water Reuse Consortium. This groundbreaking partnership has been awarded a $12.3 million cooperative agreement for phase one of a three-phase $38 million program with ERDC-CERL to tackle pressing water […]
What causes mudslides and floods after wildfires? Hint: It’s not what scientists thought
In 2020, one of the largest wildfires in Los Angeles County raged across the San Gabriel Mountains, scorching more than 115,000 acres, damaging or destroying over 150 structures and raining ash and smoke down on pandemic-weary Angelenos. But even after exhausted firefighters had finally snuffed out the flames, the Bobcat Fire — like other so-called […]
Q&A: New communication strategies to tackle climate-related water issues
Access to safe drinking water is a pressing global issue, with approximately 2 billion people currently lacking consistent access to this fundamental resource—a sobering number that is projected to soar to 5 billion by 2050. The United Nations has made global water safety—ensuring universal access to drinking water that is clean, uncontaminated and properly treated—a […]