Stanford’s Sustainability Accelerator taps Bill Lane Center expertise on groundwater to translate research into real-world impact

Always at the forefront of climate-solutions research and implementation, the Bill Lane Center for the American West announces its participation in two of the many innovative projects selected by the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. The announcement came yesterday via the Stanford Report, which named 41 new research initiatives chosen for their potential to rapidly scale solutions to urgent global sustainability challenges.

The Stanford Sustainability Accelerator is a Doerr School program aimed at translating cutting-edge research into real-world impact. Led by staff with industry expertise, project management skills, and external partnerships to facilitate bringing solutions to market, the Accelerator helps interdisciplinary teams transform ideas into scalable solutions. Its goal is ambitious but vital: to drive implementation at the pace and scale the climate crisis demands.

With its longtime research focus on environmental governance, policy and climate change, the Bill Lane Center's priorities are deeply aligned with the Sustainability Accelerator's mission. It comes as no surprise, then, that Lane Center-affiliated projects would be awarded funding to explore water solutions, arguably the most critical sustainability issue in the American West.

Project 1: Scaling groundwater recharge solutions in California

The first selected project, “Sustainable water supplies to meet urban, agricultural, and ecosystem needs: Scaling groundwater recharge solutions in California,” brings together researchers and stakeholders to accelerate the implementation of groundwater recharge practices. With Center Director Bruce Cain serving as a co-Principal Investigator, the project aims to identify scalable methods to capture and store water during wet periods in order to buffer California’s communities, farms, and ecosystems during times of drought. The project is especially timely as California continues to grapple with groundwater overdraft and climate-driven extremes in precipitation.

Project 2: Lessons learned from California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act

The second project, “Global Groundwater Sustainability: Scaling and Transferring Innovative Solutions from California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA),” is led by longtime Lane Center affiliate and Stanford Law Professor Barton “Buzz” Thompson, with Bruce Cain also serving as a co-PI. This initiative draws on the lessons of California’s landmark groundwater reform law — SGMA — to inform groundwater sustainability strategies around the world.

SGMA, passed in 2014, was a pioneering step in bringing California’s unregulated groundwater basins under local control. A decade later, the law offers a wealth of data, governance models, and community engagement lessons. This project seeks to scale those insights globally to help address the escalating water crises facing regions from South Asia to the American Southwest.

A major milestone for the Lane Center

Being selected by the Doerr School for these prestigious awards underscores the Bill Lane Center’s growing role in shaping water policy innovation at both the state and global level. The projects outlined above exemplify the Center’s mission: to bring research, policy, and regional expertise together to address the urgent sustainability challenges of the American West.

As water scarcity intensifies under climate change, the need for integrated, interdisciplinary, and scalable solutions has never been more potent. The Lane Center is honored to contribute to sustainability research efforts that are driving meaningful, real-world impact.