AVONDALE, PA — The Stroud Water Research Center, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), has embarked on a three-year project aimed at enhancing water quality in communities located in northern Virginia.
The initiative employs a science-based methodology that emphasizes ecosystem health while restoring streams, rivers, and their watersheds. Stroud Center will cooperate with farmers and landowners within the Bull Run and Broad Run watersheds to improve cropland management. This involves implementing soil health practices across 2,300 acres, such as no-till planting and cover crop systems. The project is anticipated to return over 254 million liters (67 million gallons) of clean water annually to recharge groundwater resources.
This endeavor falls under AWS’s commitment to return more water to communities than it consumes by 2030. This objective will be met partially through projects that conserve and replenish water resources. Public and non-profit partners like the Stroud Center assist in the execution of these conservation and replenishment projects. While this is the inaugural AWS project in northern Virginia, similar initiatives globally represent 3.9 billion liters of water returned to local communities each year.
Matthew Ehrhart, Stroud Center Director of Watershed Restoration, commented, “Stroud Water Research Center has a more than 50-year history of pioneering research on streams and rivers worldwide. Over the last decade, we’ve integrated our science into projects to restore these valuable but often degraded ecosystems, simultaneously helping farmers enhance their operations. With funding from AWS, we are expanding the reach of these stream-friendly projects, increasing groundwater recharge, and delivering better-protected water resources to more people.”
Amazon’s Water Sustainability Lead, Will Hewes, added, “At Amazon, we are passionate about making a positive impact in our communities. Support for this project is part of our effort to be water positive by 2030. We’re particularly excited to support water sustainability in the Chesapeake Bay region, where Amazon has built its second headquarters and many of our employees live and work.”
The Stroud Center and AWS are targeting large tracts of land around headwater streams to maximize the project’s positive impact on water resources. This will also benefit urban downstream communities in and around Washington, D.C.
Additional funding partners will support the planting and maintenance of streamside forests using proven methods that significantly increase the survival of young trees. These measures are expected to enhance infiltration and groundwater recharge while reducing stormwater runoff, flooding, water inefficiency, and pollution from sediment and nutrients.
The water quality improvements will also contribute to the pollution reduction goals of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, which guides the restoration of the United States’ largest estuary and its watershed.
In its pursuit to be water-positive by 2030, AWS also recycles wastewater at several of its data centers instead of consuming drinking water. This includes 16 data centers in Virginia, thus making more high-quality water available for the community.
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