Water in the West is a multi-year joint program of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Bill Lane Center for the American West.  It is a place where faculty, staff and students from the natural, physical and social sciences, law, business and humanities who engage in interdisciplinary research and teaching about freshwater can meet and collaborate while tackling the challenge of water security affected by a growing population, collapsing ecosystems, crumbling infrastructure, evolving economies, conflicting values and a less predictable and more volatile climate.

As part of that research and teaching the initiative produces reports, working papers, solutions briefs and other publications which they currently archive on their own website. 

The SDR offers a long-term preservation option for those documents and helps fulfill one of the key goals of the program; that of disseminating the information to the outside world to better inform policy- and decision-making
on water issues.