Available Grants

• Identify available/emerging technologies for asset health monitoring of large diameter and/or transmission pipes.
• Develop effective techniques and procedures for applications of these asset health monitoring technologies to large diameter and/or transmission pipes and perform field verification.
• Develop guidelines/models for correlating data to pipe material degradation, defects, etc., and on how and which structural health aspects can be monitored and correlated with operations.
• Identify and compile cases, if any, in which such technologies are successfully applied to water industry assets other than pipes.

WRF RFP Contact: Jian Zhang

For instructions on how to submit proposals, refer to these instructions or this video.

The Potential Participants listed at the bottom of this page have indicated interest in participating in this research. This information is updated frequently as utilities are encouraged to volunteer throughout the RFP cycle.

• Evaluate how utilities are currently leveraging advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) data to inform pricing, conservation programs (including emergency curtailment practices), affordability programs, and plans for future implementation.
• Analyze AMI data and assess how the data can be leveraged to develop and/or enhance conservation programs, policies, rates, and affordability programs.
• Investigate the potential for advanced analytics, including machine learning, of AMIdatasets to support adaptive or dynamic rate structures, early detection of hardship or atrisk households, categorization of customer classes, dynamic tiering based on household size, and better targeting of affordability and conservation interventions.
• Identify the obstacles utilities and regulators face when balancing conservation, equity, and revenue stability, and how improved AMI data can clarify tradeoffs.

WRF RFP Contact: Sydney Samples

For instructions on how to submit proposals, refer to these instructions or this video.

The Potential Participants listed at the bottom of this page have indicated interest in participating in this research. This information is updated frequently as utilities are encouraged to volunteer throughout the RFP cycle.

• Develop a data-efficient machine learning model to estimate likelihood of failure (LOF) of valves using commonly available utility data, including asset attributes, condition indicators, environmental factors, and geohazards.
• Develop consequence of failure (COF) analysis based on hydraulic modeling and network connectivity to quantify service disruption, affected population, outage duration, and community impacts resulting from valve inoperability or failure.
• Incorporate uncertainty in asset condition and operability into risk estimation and prioritization.
• Create a practical, risk-based framework to rank critical assets for maintenance, rehabilitation, and capital investment planning.
• Define minimum data requirements needed to perform reliable risk-based prioritization.

WRF RFP Contact: Jian Zhang, PhD, PE

For instructions on how to submit proposals, refer to these instructions or this video.

The Potential Participants listed at the bottom of this page have indicated interest in participating in this research. This information is updated frequently as utilities are encouraged to volunteer throughout the RFP cycle.

1. Assess current utility practices for incorporating adaptive or flexible decision making into capital improvement planning (CIP) at the portfolio or programmatic level.
2. Identify where deep uncertainty most affects CIP decision points, including investment areas prone to lock-in or points of no return.
3. Document the institutional processes, frameworks, and governance structures that have enabled utilities to embed adaptive and flexible investment strategies.
4. Quantify how adaptive capital strategies compare to traditional CIP approaches in terms of lifecycle costs, rate stability, financial risk exposure, and avoided or deferred capital investments across a range of plausible future conditions.
5. Establish practical criteria to help utilities determine which types of capital investments are well suited for adaptive approaches.
6. Develop a practitioner-focused playbook that equips utilities to apply adaptive CIP in practice, including case studies, decision trees, trigger points, vulnerability assessment tools, financial and risk insights, and governance guidance.
7. Produce tiered recommendations that allow utilities to adopt adaptive CIP practices incrementally.

WRF RFP Contact: Jessica Metcalf, ENV, SP

For instructions on how to submit proposals, refer to these instructions or this video.

The Potential Participants listed at the bottom of this page have indicated interest in participating in this research. This information is updated frequently as utilities are encouraged to volunteer throughout the RFP cycle.

• Quantify the relative influence of compensation, pension stability, mission alignment, schedule flexibility, leadership support, career development opportunities, and other factors on employee retention in public-sector water utilities.
• Identify and analyze key impediments to retaining talent, including structural, cultural, compensation-related, and organizational barriers.
• Identify and benchmark retention best practices from sectors outside the water industry to assess transferability and develop case studies of high-retention organizations to distill replicable strategies and measurable success factors.

WRF RFP Contact: Alice Jariz, PE

For instructions on how to submit proposals, refer to these instructions or this video.

The Potential Participants listed at the bottom of this page have indicated interest in participating in this research. This information is updated frequently as utilities are encouraged to volunteer throughout the RFP cycle.

• Report per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) concentrations from a variety of agricultural inputs, including animal manures, fertilizers, pesticides, composts, soil amendments, seed coatings, and biosolids-based products.
• Compare the impact of the various agricultural inputs on PFAS concentration in the soil profile over varying timeframes.
• Evaluate the fate and transport of different inputs to PFAS contributions in agricultural systems at field-scale.
• Determine the relative contributions from biosolids-based products and other inputs to help develop and prioritize risk management strategies.

WRF RFP Contact: Maitreyi Nagarkar, PhD

For instructions on how to submit proposals, refer to these instructions or this video.

The Potential Participants listed at the bottom of this page have indicated interest in participating in this research. This information is updated frequently as utilities are encouraged to volunteer throughout the RFP cycle.