The Urban Water Center at CSU was created at the dawn of the new millennium to foster education and research as well as provide municipalities with information to assist them with better management of their urban water systems. The mission of this organization is to develop better methods to manage water use in the urban environment through teaching and research in two main areas:

• The reduction of urban water supply demands through the use of household graywater for residential landscape irrigation and toilet flushing and
• The development of protocols for control of urban runoff to create sustainable urban stream systems in terms of hydrology, geomorphology, and ecology.

Teaching, informal instruction, and research are the Center’s three-pronged approach to improving the current urban water system. Teaching includes two graduate classes, Analysis of Urban Water Systems (CE 572) and Urban Stormwater Management (CE 573). Analysis of Urban Water Systems introduces students to how water is managed in the urban setting and guides them in examining ways to improve the current system. Urban Stormwater Management educates students in the state-of-practice of urban drainage systems design and illustrates how damaging this practice is to urban stream systems; students are then taught how to design these systems in a manner that is hydrologically, geomorphically, and ecologically stable. Informal instruction involves granting Senior Design students with projects dealing with urban water systems access to the Urban Water Center's lab where they can be mentored by graduate students who work in the lab. Research includes the development of protocols for control of runoff; protocols for studying the impacts of various land use practices on stream geomorphology and ecology; the analysis the quantity, quality and bacteriology of household graywater; and the efficacy of graywater treatment and implementation.