With advances in artificial intelligence, we can transform our ability to protect the nation’s waterways from major polluters.

Environmental laws protect the air, water, and land, but noncompliance remains pervasive. The result is tens of millions of Americans exposed to unsafe drinking water and pollution hotspots each day. Yet environmental regulators, with rapidly dwindling budgets for enforcement, struggle to ensure compliance with our nation’s environmental regulations.

RegLab is exploring how technology can be used to better protect our waterways, landscapes, and livelihoods. One area of our work builds on a partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency to use and evaluate machine learning methods to meet the national strategic goal to cut significant noncompliance in half by 2022. Another area of our work explores how computer vision with satellite imagery — to detect facilities evading environmental regulations — can pave the path for modern environmental compliance.