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What would it take to make the Delaware ‘swimmable’?
delaware river with ben franklin bridge in background

What would it take to make the Delaware ‘swimmable’?

With funding from the William Penn Foundation, the Water Center at Penn is investigating questions of water quality, access, and equity.

Katherine Unger Baillie

Design travels to South Carolina to plan more protective urban coastlines
Aerial view of a South Carolina coastal municipality map diagramed for design purposes

Aerial view of Imagine the Wall, Charleston, a proposal for the South Carolina coastal city. (Image: Weitzman School)

Design travels to South Carolina to plan more protective urban coastlines

A Weitzman School team is working with the city of Charleston on an urban seawall plan that combines natural elements with structural systems that respond to the local conditions of the city’s shoreline.

From the Weitzman School of Design

How to make progress for Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers
Evening view of Pittsburgh skyline along one of its rivers

How to make progress for Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers

The Water Center at Penn has completed the first phase of a high-level study of the challenges and opportunities for water resource management in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Region.

Penn Today Staff

How to make a better water filter? Turn it inside out
a line of cylinders with used water filters on a bench outside

How to make a better water filter? Turn it inside out

Penn engineers describe a novel approach for making antimicrobial nanoscale water filters while demonstrating new approaches that can be used to develop a broad range of materials.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Relieving water scarcity, one home at a time
Four smiling students posing by a blue container with a level on top of it

Members of the Penn chapter of nonprofit organization Isla Urbana, including (from left) Samira Mehta, Wanqi Fang, Pallavi Menon, and Imañia Powers, helped to install rainwater harvesting and filtration systems in Mexico City this summer. (Photo: Lucia Palmarini)

Relieving water scarcity, one home at a time

Due to a rapidly depleting underground aquifer, many residents of Mexico City are left with little-to-no easily accessible clean water for hours or days at a time. This summer, members of the Penn chapter of Isla Urbana helped install rainwater harvesting and filtration systems to provide residents of the Mexican capital with clean water year-round.

Gina Vitale

Toxins from the tap
Gloved hands holding a syringe with groundwater with a background of a body of water
  • Q&A

    • Toxins from the tap

    In Pennsylvania and hundreds of other locations around the country, manmade chemicals known as PFAS have been found in drinking water. Howard Neukrug discusses the potential harm, how local and federal agencies are responding, and the many related questions that remain unanswered.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    Keeping rain out of the drain
    A scientist kneeling on a lawn checks a well using electronic monitoring equipment

    David Vann of the School of Arts and Sciences heads up the research efforts around Shoemaker Green’s stormwater management system. Using sensors placed around the site, he hopes to be able to closely monitor how much water drains out of the system, and how quickly. 

    Keeping rain out of the drain

    From cisterns beneath Shoemaker Green to the green roof on New College House, special features of campus buildings and landscapes are helping manage stormwater to keep rain from the sewer lines, and scholars are using the infrastructure as a research opportunity.

    Katherine Unger Baillie

    A sense of place on shifting shores
    A colorful artist's rendering of a river with people fishing with a barge in the background and a drawing of an old map on the horizon

    In works like “Memorial Day on the Delaware,” artist Roderick Coover blends natural, industrial, and historical imagery to convey a sense of place and experience. (Image: ©Roderick Coover)

    A sense of place on shifting shores

    Roderick Coover, whose work merges cinema, science, and history, is the 2019 Mellon Artist-in-Residence for the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH). His recent film “Toxi-City: A Climate Change Narrative” screened at PPEH’s “Teaching and Learning with Rising Waters” event.

    Katherine Unger Baillie