Boosting the Bottom Line While Building a Better Future
In 2022, Amazon Web Services, a provider of on-demand cloud computing technology, announced its commitment to being water-positive by 2030, aiming to return more water to communities and the environment than it uses in its data center operations. The following year, the $2 trillion subsidiary of the world’s largest online retailer announced its partnership with Stroud Water Research Center to help meet its goal.
Using a science-based approach that prioritizes ecosystem health in the restoration of streams, rivers, and watersheds, the Stroud Center will work with farmers and agricultural landowners in northern Virginia to improve cropland management and plant streamside forests.
Together, AWS and the Stroud Center will recharge groundwater resources and return more than 67 million gallons of clean water to underground aquifers each year — water that’s needed for communities, ecosystems, and businesses to thrive.
The decision for AWS to offset its water use through a replenishment project is about more than caring for fresh water and the people, animals, and plants that depend on that water. It’s about sound business strategy that showcases innovation and long-term thinking. A partnership with the Stroud Center gives corporate entities like AWS access to groundbreaking science and restoration to achieve water stewardship goals that align the interests of people, planet, and profit.
Innovation and Partnership: The Stroud Center and AWS
Stroud Center Assistant Director Scott Ensign and Simon Araya from Utility Associates accept the “City on a Cloud Innovation Challenge” award from Amazon Web Services for the Model My Watershed project at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., during the AWS Public Sector Summit in June 2018. Model My Watershed will be used in the water replenishment project with AWS to estimate environmental benefits. In 2021, AWS awarded the Stroud Center and partner LimnoTech, Inc. a grant to further develop Monitor My Watershed, a companion tool that’s also part of the Stroud Center’s open source WikiWatershed Toolkit.
A Unique Approach to Restoration
The Stroud Center is first and foremost a scientific research institution focused on the study of freshwater systems. Science leads its approach to restoration, which prioritizes data-driven strategies that yield successful outcomes for streams and rivers — not as pipes that shoot water and any contaminants far away from sources — but as living ecosystems that are part of a larger watershed. The watershed restoration team works with Stroud Center scientists to incorporate the latest research on what makes freshwater ecosystems healthy into on-the-ground projects to protect and restore them from damage, most often from human impacts.
Seeing the impact that land use, including agriculture, has on the health of these systems, water flow and infiltration, and soil health, the Stroud Center works with farmers and landowners to adopt farm-management practices that protect and restore water resources for relatively low cost.
The AWS project will add soil health practices to 4,600 acres of farmland in the Bull Run and Broad Run watersheds, including no-till planting and cover crop systems. Funding from additional partners will support the planting and maintenance of streamside forests using methods that the Stroud Center has shown can significantly increase the survival of young, newly installed trees. These measures are expected to increase infiltration and groundwater recharge while also reducing stormwater runoff, flooding, water inefficiency, and water pollution from sediment and nutrients.
The Economic Benefits of Watershed Restoration
In addition to supporting freshwater ecosystems, watershed restoration can fuel economic growth, cut costs, create jobs, and provide opportunities for businesses large and small.
Employers and job seekers benefit too, particularly in agriculture, food, and related industries, which contribute about $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy and provide more than 10% of U.S. jobs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service reports.
These industries include businesses like Octoraro Native Plant Nursery, which supplies many of the plants used in the Stroud Center’s watershed restoration projects.
“About 70% of our business supports reforestation projects. The surge in demand for quality woody natives has allowed us to expand and hire more people despite an industrywide labor shortage.”
— JIM MACKENZIE, PRESIDENT, OCTORARO NATIVE PLANT NURSERY
Photo: Horizon Farm
MacKenzie says, “This industry can provide a good lifestyle. We pay well, we provide benefits, and we’re mission-driven. The younger generation — ages 25 to 35 — has a social and environmental bent to them. They want to be part of something that benefits society.” Investing in projects that protect and restore the world’s water resources is one way that corporations can appeal to the 90% of employees who say they are more inspired, motivated, and loyal when working at places with a strong sense of purpose, according to Harvard Business School.
Making a Real Impact
Crucially, watershed restoration investments should be allocated to projects that follow good science to achieve meaningful and measurable environmental outcomes. The Stroud Center’s approach is the culmination of more than 50 years of unbiased, long-term research on what works, what doesn’t, and what outcomes to expect. Such insights are possible because of the unique feedback loop between the Stroud Center’s research and watershed restoration projects.
The USDA, for example, has funded multiple Stroud Center research studies through its Conservation Innovation Grants program that examine the environmental impacts of watershed restoration by collecting data before and after implementation. One award-winning project aims to restore a watershed and stream, measure the increase in ecosystem functions, and remove it from Pennsylvania’s list of impaired waters. Another project examines how no-till agriculture, cover crops, and other conservation practices may improve soil structure, drought resistance, and water infiltration. Soon, the Stroud Center will put its restoration science to use in the climate crisis as researchers quantify the climate benefits of watershed restoration through the planting of riparian forests.
“Pennsylvania farmers are so fortunate to have Stroud Water Research Center in the commonwealth, leading advancements in innovation and stewardship. Stroud’s research empowers farmers with the knowledge and tools to harness the latest science and information to make informed decisions that benefit the environment and economic vitality of our agriculture industry.”
— RUSSELL REDDING, PENNSYLVANIA SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
Corporations that partner with the Stroud Center on such projects can make a real impact with the data to back it up. The AWS project uses Model My Watershed, part of the Stroud Center’s WikiWatershed Toolkit, to cost-effectively estimate environmental benefits. With further financial investment, corporations can support research to gather field data as well.
Water Sustainability Lead for Amazon Will Hewes says, “At Amazon, we’re excited to work with Stroud Water Research Center in the Chesapeake Bay region as part of AWS’s commitment to be water positive by 2030 and Amazon’s aim to be a good water steward everywhere we operate. With its reputation and track record, the Stroud Center is a valuable and trusted partner in leading a science-based approach to watershed restoration.”
Learn More
To learn how you can partner with the Stroud Center on shared water stewardship goals, email development@stroudcenter.org.
