This article examines how clusters across the Great Lakes, like Cleveland Water Alliance, are positioning the region as a hub for water innovation and economic development. Bryan Stubbs, Executive Director & President of CWA, is featured discussing the opportunities and challenges ahead for advancing water solutions and the blue economy, and the region’s collaborative ecosystem of utilities, researchers, and entrepreneurs.

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The confluence of the Milwaukee and Menominee rivers, in the downtown core of Wisconsin’s largest city, is a prime vantage to assess the collection of assets that define the past and future of Great Lakes water use, and the array of technology development encompassing the region’s water.

Together and in complement, universities, research labs, tech incubators, water-focused businesses, and forward-thinking utilities here and in other cities are pushing for something greater than the sum of their parts. Drawing from a deep well of economic and industrial history, leaders envision the Great Lakes region as a world-changing hub for water technology, achieving for pipes, pumps, sensors, waste purification, and resource recovery what Silicon Valley did for semiconductor advances and personal computing.

But unlike Silicon Valley’s ascent, which was significantly bolstered by steady public research funding – federal investment, for instance, paid 25 percent of the cost of developing the transistor – Great Lakes blue economy development is taking shape in an era of resistance to U.S. government research outlays.