Bio


Philip Womble is an attorney and a hydrologist specializing in water policy and water markets. He is a legal/postdoctoral fellow with the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Philip received his Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford and his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where his research evaluated optimal environmental water rights marketing in the Upper Colorado River Basin, barriers to water marketing in the state of Colorado, and Native American groundwater claims across the western United States. His work has been published in journals such as Science, Water Resources Research, and the Harvard Environmental Law Review. During graduate school, Philip worked for the Special Master in the U.S. Supreme Court interstate water dispute Montana v. Wyoming, The Nature Conservancy's Colorado River Program, and a water law firm. Before graduate school, he worked for the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC, where he analyzed the most established market for freshwater ecosystem services in the United States – wetland and stream compensatory mitigation under the Clean Water Act. Philip grew up in North Carolina, where he received his B.S. in Environmental Sciences from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Professional Education


  • Bachelor of Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Environmental Sciences (2010)
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Stanford University, CEE-PMN (2020)
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Stanford University, ENVRES-PHD (2020)
  • Doctor of Jurisprudence, Stanford University, LAW-JD (2016)

Stanford Advisors


All Publications


  • Decoupling environmental water markets from water law ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS Womble, P., Townsend, A., Szeptycki, L. F. 2022; 17 (6)
  • Legal Change and Water Market Transaction Costs in Colorado WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH Womble, P., Hanemann, W. 2020; 56 (4)
  • Water Markets, Water Courts, and Transaction Costs in Colorado WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH Womble, P., Hanemann, W. 2020; 56 (4)
  • Indigenous communities, groundwater opportunities. Science (New York, N.Y.) Womble, P., Perrone, D., Jasechko, S., Nelson, R. L., Szeptycki, L. F., Anderson, R. T., Gorelick, S. M. 2018; 361 (6401): 453–55

    View details for PubMedID 30072527

  • Multimodel Groundwater Analysis in US Courts: Potential Applications and Limitations GROUNDWATER Womble, P. 2017; 55 (5): 630–34

    View details for PubMedID 28715082