The water crisis: How California overcomes the drought | David Sedlak | TEDxMarin
Professor David Sedlak presents a solution based approach to the worsening Water Crisis on the West Coast
Author, Professor and Director of the Institute for Environmental Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley,
Professor Sedlak has developed cost-effective, safe, and sustainable systems to manage water resources, with emphasis on local sources of water, by water reuse– using municipal wastewater effluent to sustain aquatic ecosystems and augment drinking water supplies–and the treatment and use of urban runoff to contaminated groundwater from industrial sites as water supplies.
In 1996 he developed simple methods for measuring steroid hormones in wastewater. Since then, he and his students have studied the fate of hormones, pharmaceuticals, toxic disinfection byproducts and other chemicals as well as remediating contaminated soil and groundwater by in situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) and advanced oxidation processes.
He also is the author of “Water 4.0”, a book offering insight into current water issues by understanding the history of urban water systems.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at