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The mission of the Building Performance Knowledge Community (BPKC) is to increase building performance related to occupant comfort and health, and to the function, durability, sustainability, and resilience of buildings.
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  • 1.  Cities and Drought

    Posted 02-27-2014 06:57 AM
    This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Committee on the Environment and Technical Design for Building Performance Knowledge Community .
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    We need to look at water source resilience in addition to sustainability as nationally urgent in light of much less predictable weather patterns worldwide.  This includes recent droughts in places like Australia and California where the real possibility of populated areas having no water at all has appeared on the horizon.  This recent University of Cambridge study about loss of water sources and abandoned cities could easily happen today http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140226110844.htm .  Our "to do" list would do well to include switching to far hardier plants in agriculture and landscaping, elimination of all irrigation that is not essential for agriculture or fire prevention, restoring our aquifer levels which have been dropping steadily for generations, and large scale strategic planning and water storage and pipeline projects.  We would do well to understand that our use of water is both an energy burden as reported by the EPA http://www.epa.gov/statelocalclimate/local/topics/water.html but essential to generating power as reported by the IEEE http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/fossil-fuels/collision-between-water-and-energy-is-underway-and-worsening and the NCSL http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/overviewofthewaterenergynexusintheus.aspx .  To quote the GAO on the matter, "Uncertainties affecting energy and water resources cannot be ignored because they could significantly affect the future supply and demand of both resources."

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    Drake A. Wauters, AIA
    TDBP Advisory Group
    Architectural Technical Director
    Arlington, Virginia
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