With the rapid pace of urbanization in South Asia, there is a critical need to improve not only the current inadequate water supply and sanitation services but also plan and meet future demand. As this demand increases at an accelerated pace, the issues to connect the supply and demand are being mired in various questions related to water availability, water quality, public health and hygiene, and cost-effective water provision and management.  urban WASH -- an urban water initiative, recently launched  by the CSAS, is designed to showcase various events and speakers focusing on addressing the urgent need to address urban water and sanitation issues in South Asia.

Some events that have already been organized under this initiative are:

• Urban Water Futures - Can India's Small Towns Show the Way? -- The 2nd Sarah Kailath Memorial Lecture on  "Women and Leadership," on October 30, 2012, was delivered by Rohini Nilekani, chairperson of Arghyam, a foundation working on water and sanitation issues in India. Video of the talk. Media coverage of the event.Webcast of the talk here.
• urban WASH: Paradigms for Water, Sanitation & Hygiene for the 21st Century South Asian City, a graduate student symposium held on April 25, 2012, which focused primarily on urban water management.
• Dealing with the largest mass poisoning in the history of mankind: Locally-affordable arsenic remediation of drinking water for South Asia - a lecture by Ashok Gadgil, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley on November 17, 2011. Webcast of the talk here.

Upcoming events in this initiative are:

• Reinvent Growth without Pollution: Can India do it? - A Talk by Indian environmentalist, political activist, and the 2005 Stockholm World Water Prize, Sunita Narain on Thursday, April 16, 2013:
• urban WASH: Safe Water for South Asia, a day-long program to be held on Saturday, April 20, 2013, that will showcase UC Berkeley's cutting edge research on water availability and quality, sanitation and hygiene, and cost-effective water provision & management methods for South Asia.

Some South Asia related water projects on campus are:

This site is still under construciton.