LiKEN has identified water as a key component of nurturing community capacity through enabling local livelihoods and ways for communities to care for their own well-being based on thriving life commons, relationships, and infrastructures that last.

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The Water Collaboratory works to secure clean, reliable, and affordable drinking water and improved watershed quality in rural communities.

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LiKEN convenes the East Kentucky Water Network, organizations and stakeholders working together to secure clean, reliable, and affordable drinking water and improve watershed quality in eastern Kentucky.

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Through the Water, Climate, Equity (WCE) program, we’ve established an office in Harlan County, Kentucky, and hired Community Journalists who are listening to community members for a project called Water Pressure: Blessed and Stressed by Water in Our Hollers. We are also documenting the county’s water history, focusing on what has worked and has not worked to equitably provide safe, affordable, and dependable water. We are facilitating cross-sectoral knowledge exchange among experts, technical service providers, and officials, and working to build region-to-region knowledge sharing, including both success stories and discussions about what has not worked. In Martin County, KY, the WCE has facilitated hiring a Community Researcher to collect documentation of the county's water issues, including published articles, papers, and social media posts as historical "listening," along with current listening sessions focusing on current and future actions toward safe and affordable water.

In Martin and Letcher Counties, the Mountain Drinking Water Project has created a Stakeholder Consultation Core advisory group and is training citizen scientists to monitor their water for Disinfection By-Products. Surface water in the county is also tested for comparison. The first group of citizen scientists has been working for over a year and are receiving reports and other information on the results of their work. They and a second group continue to monitor their water.

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All our water projects aim to improve access to clean and safe drinking water in the region's underserved communities. Community listening and knowledge sharing, infrastructure revitalization, and community education on water safety and conservation are all part of our work. By addressing the water needs of these communities, LiKEN Knowledge works toward improving the health and well-being of the residents, and promoting sustainable development in the region.