Spotlight Report 2021: Ensuring Environmental Sustainability

By an Academy Staff Working Group: Dr. Joseph P. Mitchell III, Jillian McGuffey, and James Higgins

Ensuring Environmental Sustainability: Create Modern Water Systems for Safe and Sustainable Use, Steward Natural Resources and Address Climate Change

Ensuring environmental sustainability continues to be a significant challenge to communities around the globe. In 2021 alone, the U.S. has seen several natural disasters generated or amplified by drained natural resources and accelerated climate change including:

• Droughts and heatwaves in the American West;
• Severe winter storms across the Midwest and Northeast;
• Severe floods across multiple states affecting both rural and metropolitan areas including those in Tennessee, Louisiana, and New York;
• Wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, Arizona, and California; and
• A violent hurricane season.

Because these trends will most likely continue into the foreseeable future, the U.S. must engage in mitigation and adaptation actions, secure and properly use its natural resources, and modernize its water systems to deliver clean water to all communities and to drain stormwater.

READ THE REPORT

Please visit the Election 2020 Homepage for the original action plans.