Stanford drinking water tool aims to cut costs for system fixes

Stanford drinking water tool research is moving toward a public release that could help U.S. communities compare the cost of fixing troubled water systems. Stanford University said engineer Khalid Osman and collaborators are building models for managers who must decide whether to upgrade local systems or work with nearby utilities.

The project targets a common problem for small water systems: deciding how to meet drinking water rules when staff, software and money are limited. Stanford said the tools are meant to combine public data on household income, treatment infrastructure age, water system boundaries and other factors that affect whether a community can bring a system back into compliance.

What is the Stanford drinking water tool?

The planned tool is a free public modeling system designed to help water managers, local boards, advocates, consultants and engineering firms compare options for improving drinking water systems. Stanford said the team wants the models to show which fixes are most cost-effective for a specific community, rather than leaving local officials to work through scattered data and spreadsheets on their own.

Osman, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, studies water management, conservation and access to clean water. Stanford said he began looking at the issue after speaking with managers from water systems of different sizes who found existing federal cost tools hard to use.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers spreadsheets for comparing upgrade costs, according to Stanford. Osman’s group heard that some utilities lack the software or staffing to run those calculations, especially in small communities where a water system may be run by a small operator or by someone who has another full-time job.

Why water systems need cost comparisons

Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, water systems must tell customers when testing finds violations of EPA standards, according to the EPA. Those violations can include acute health risks such as E. coli or high levels of contaminants including lead and copper; other violations may involve procedural failures such as missed reporting deadlines.

Stanford said managers usually have two main ways to prevent repeat violations. They can pay for upgrades, or they can combine infrastructure, operations or management with a nearby system that has stronger resources.

Both choices can be expensive, and comparing them can take time, according to Stanford. The result, Stanford said, is that some communities postpone action or leave problems unresolved.

Who is building the project?

In 2025, Osman and Greg Pierce, senior director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab at UCLA, received support from the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Stanford said the funding helped them build modeling tools for local decision-making.

The team also worked with water system managers, board members, community advocacy groups, engineering consulting firms and consultants who assist water systems, according to Stanford. Feedback from those groups broadened the project from a manager-focused tool into one intended for several kinds of users involved in drinking water improvements.

Stanford said a collaboration with EPIC helped turn the idea into a prototype in less than a year. The researchers showed the tools to system managers and other stakeholders in spring 2026 and are now refining versions they plan to release for free in 2027.

Pierce said, according to Stanford, that many efforts have measured the scope of noncompliant water systems, while fewer have estimated how fixes could be carried out and what they would cost. Osman said he hopes the work also encourages attention to related water issues, including supply limits and contaminants such as microplastics.

This story draws on original reporting from Phys.org.