21st Century Water Systems: Scenarios, Visions, and Drivers

The document outlines four plausible scenarios for the year 2010 based on federal regulatory roles and financial environments. It advocates for a 'water soft path' paradigm shift, moving from centralized, demand-driven 'gray infrastructure' toward decentralized, efficient, and integrated 'green infrastructure.' The author identifies drivers for this transition, including end-use efficiency, waterless sanitation, stormwater harvesting, and technological spill-overs from the distributed energy revolution, such as fuel cells and hybrid-electric vehicles.

• RMI developed four scenarios for urban water systems in 2010 based on two critical uncertainties: the federal government's role in water management and the state of the financial environment. These scenarios are 'Approaching Apocalypse' (reduced federal role, weak finance), 'Off to Market' (reduced federal role, supportive finance), 'Seeking Camelot' (dominant federal role, supportive finance), and 'Mandate' (dominant federal role, weak finance).
• The 'water soft path' is a proposed paradigm shift that treats human waste and stormwater as resources rather than nuisances, emphasizes demand management over building for demand, and utilizes 'green infrastructure'—the natural capacities of soil and vegetation—alongside decentralized systems.
• Significant water savings are achievable through residential indoor efficiency; the document suggests that full implementation of the best available technologies could reduce total potential indoor residential use by 50 percent or more.
• The transition to hybrid-electric vehicles is expected to improve the quality of urban runoff by reducing the deposition of brake and tread wear particles and eliminating motor vehicle oil leakage and burning.
• The development of hydrogen fuel cells for the automotive market is expected to lower costs for building-scale installations, which produce chemically pure water as their only emission and can be integrated with existing electric and gas infrastructure.
• The 'distributed resources revolution' in the electric utility industry, characterized by small-scale generation units, is expected to provide management expertise and technological spill-overs that will improve the viability of decentralized water systems.

APA

Pinkham, R. (n.d.). 21st Century Water Systems: Scenarios, Visions, and Drivers. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_W99-21_21CentWaterSys.pdf

Chicago

Pinkham, Richard. 21st Century Water Systems: Scenarios, Visions, and Drivers. RMI, n.d. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_W99-21_21CentWaterSys.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Pinkham |first1=Richard |title=21st Century Water Systems: Scenarios, Visions, and Drivers |publisher=RMI |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_W99-21_21CentWaterSys.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{pinkhamnd21st, author = {Pinkham, Richard}, title = {{21st Century Water Systems: Scenarios, Visions, and Drivers}}, institution = {RMI}, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_W99-21_21CentWaterSys.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }