CAREER: Sustainable Pipelines for America's Water Infrastructure Through Life Cycle Assessment and Workforce Development (ALN 47.083)

Byrne (PI) CAREER: Sustainable Pipelines for America’s Water Infrastructure through Life Cycle Assessment and Workforce Development Abstract This CAREER proposal seeks to develop sustainable pipelines – advancing U.S. water infrastructure sustainability by (1) integrating sustainability assessments into water distribution system planning and management and (2) preparing a sustainability-minded workforce for our nation’s water infrastructure. This project will address a critical barrier for integration of sustainability into water system planning and management – an inability to conduct sustainability assessments rapidly with currently available data and tools, coupled with the challenge of a declining water workforce. This first goal – to integrate sustainable sustainability assessments into water distribution system planning and management – will be addressed by developing and applying a life cycle sustainability model for water distribution systems and identifying sustainability drivers to develop a state-level screening assessment for informed decision-making in Kentucky. This second goal – to prepare a sustainability-minded workforce for our nation’s water infrastructure – will take a multi-level approach to workforce development for water infrastructure that includes engaging new entrants to the workforce (through partnerships in Kentucky prisons) as well as training the current and future workforce in sustainability thinking.