Open Call Invitation
Through stories, essays, and videos, Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL), in association with the US Water Alliance, seeks to inspire and empower members of the engineering community to evolve and deepen their commitment to a new “water ethic” for the 21st Century, underpinning their role as stewards of water on behalf of society.
The springboard for this creative effort is an initial set of values, beliefs, and mindsets drawn from a deep dive into this theme at ECL’s Spring 2025 Envisioning a New Water Ethic Summit. Modeling the writings of Aldo Leopold and his classic work, The Sand County Almanac, we hope these collected narratives will illustrate how this emerging ethic can contribute to positive futures for water in our communities, ecosystems, and society.
The full report from this summit is available on the ECL website at this link. A summary of the ethical themes that emerged at the summit is included with the Open Call Invitation and Submission Guidelines.
ECL and the US Water Alliance together are seeking a diverse set of leaders, practitioners, and stakeholders within the engineering community to contribute their perspectives and stories to help shape and communicate this emergent water ethic.
Through this open call invitation, we hope to combine engineering community perspectives with those drawn from an invited set of researchers, writers, artists, and advocates.
So far, our outreach to invited contributors has resulted in commitments from a cross section of water sector experts from universities, public sector agencies, and private sector practitioners.
Our intended outcome for this effort will be an open-access digital book containing both sets of narratives (invited and open-call). We intend to widely publicize the book throughout the engineering community, including through our partnership with the US Water Alliance.
If you are interested in submitting your narrative for consideration for inclusion in the project, please reach out to Mike McMeekin, ECL’s Executive Director ([email protected]). More information regarding the project can be found in the Open Call Invitation and Submission Guidelines. All submissions are due by August 31, 2026.
