In 2005, Oregon State University established the Institute for Water and Watersheds as the hub for water-related teaching and research activities at the University. The vision for the IWW was developed by a team of faculty in response to an internal OSU competition to fund six interdisciplinary research and education initiatives.
OSU is ideally positioned to assume a leadership role in addressing water problems. There are 125+ faculty in six colleges who teach and conduct research in areas related to water and watersheds and bring in over $11M/year in extramural funding. OSU is renowned for its landscape-scale ecosystems research and has five graduate degree programs in Water Resources. These research and education efforts have all occurred without the benefit of programmatic coordination or strategic vision. The IWW is designed to fill that gap.
The
IWW is the state water
resources research institute for Oregon and is one of 54 state- or
territory-based, institutes established by the 1964 Federal Water Resources
Research Act. Through this program, the IWW receives federal matching
funds from the US Geological Survey to support water resources research
and education activities in Oregon. In this role, it replaces the Center
for Water and Environmental Sustainability (CWESt) which operated from
2000-2005 and the The Oregon Water Resources Research Institute (OWRRI)
which operated from 1960-2000. The Center is a member of the National
Institutes for Water Resources.
