The objective of this project is to develop a handbook which will assist installation planners in assessing the contextual water security of a military installation and to develop solutions to address risks. This handbook will draw on current industry standard methods used by federal, state, regional, and local governments, along with private entities. Additionally, the project team will interface with leadership from Office of the Secretary of Defense and the branches to incorporate these practices into the current planning and infrastructure investment frameworks.

Installation water sources can be divided into two primary categories: 1) water pumped from wells sited within the installation boundaries; and 2) Water delivered from off-site sources by regional infrastructure – though often an installation may have a combination of both. The project team will review two primary assessment methods for these categories – groundwater sustainability assessments and regional infrastructure resilience assessments.

Whether an installation relies on its own groundwater, or their water is delivered through the complex system of reservoir capture, canal distribution, and centralized treatment, a regional assessment is absolutely necessary to fully understanding their resilience posture. Groundwater can be contaminated by local agriculture or industry or be subject to unsustainable demand by new local development. Reliance on federal and state water projects such as those along the Colorado River may not provide future resilience as climate change, increased development, and pollutants impact the sources of water on which installations rely.

Currently, cities, utilities, and water management districts rely on a host of methodologies to assess the long-term viability of water sources to support their investment decision making. Unfortunately, programs such as groundwater sustainability plans or Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s Regional Resiliency Assessment Program have yet to be incorporated into the Department of Defense's (DoD) installation planning framework. 

The expected benefit to the DoD falls within two primary categories: Holistic view of the regional risks and resources available to an installation and improved metrics to support prioritization of resource investments.