The Pacific Institute (full legal name: the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security) is an American non-profit research institute created in 1987 to provide independent research and policy analysis on issues of development, environment, and security, with a particular focus on global and regional freshwater issues. It is located in Oakland, California (USA). The focus of the Institute is to find solutions to problems like water shortages and contamination, environmental conflicts, global climate change, and environmental terrorism. The mission of the Institute is to "conduct interdisciplinary research and partner with stakeholders to produce solutions that advance environmental protection, economic development, and social equity—in California, nationally, and internationally."
Since its founding, the Institute staff has analyzed scientific and policy issues, published papers, and provided both community and high-level policy workshops and briefings around water, climate, energy, environmental security, globalization, and more, with a special focus on issues in the hydrologic sciences, water management, and water policy. Its interdisciplinary approach is applied to resource issues, strategies for community involvement, and economic globalization, and they also address the misuse and abuse of science in the policy context. The Institute has also worked on new thinking around sustainable water resources management and use. In 2011, the Institute was awarded the first U.S. Water Prize. Researchers at the Institute also defined the concept of peak water. The Institute's most well-known publication is the The World's Water: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources(published by Island Press, Washington, D.C.). In 2012, the Institute produced a new book "A 21st Century U.S. Water Policy" (published by Oxford University Press).
Institute researchers in 2014 warned that the lack of replenishment water in the Salton Sea was leading to a "period of very rapid deterioration." With the increased shrinkage, dust storms would increase and a rotten-egg smell could reach to the coastal cities.