Two days ago I finally met Sarah Bates, who is one of the best thinkers and writers on Western USA water and land issues. I have known of Sarah’s work for almost 20 years, ever since she collaborated with the late Marc Reisner to produce Overtapped Oasis: Reform or Revolution for Western Water, the ’sequel’ to Cadillac Desert. She also co-authored the excellent Searching Out the Headwaters: Change and Rediscovery in Western Water Policy. I am embarrassed to admit I have not read the latter. I’ll rectify that.

I have posted about her work here: 4 September 2008; 28 July 2008; 18 June 2008; and 23 March 2007. I also mentioned the Carpe Diem - Western Water and Climate Change Project, on whose core team she serves.

She spoke here at Oregon State University on Water in a Warming West: How Will Western Water Policy Respond to Climate Change. She (refreshingly) spoke without using PowerPoint but we recorded her talk, which should be posted here in several days (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

I learned that she has a keen interest in the exempt well issue. That came as little surprise to me; just about everyone who’s thinking about Western water issues is concerned about these wells. Suffice it to say that in most Western states we don’t know how much water is used by these wells and regulation is minimal. But I digress…

She made an excellent point: policy is a social choice. It is not determined by science, although it is, or should be, informed by such.

Another good point: Western water is a lose-lose proposition. Why? No matter what a poltician does or says, he or she will step on someone else’s toes. It’s inevitable.

She mentioned a media audit conducted by the aforementioned Carpe Diem Project which found 5,000 articles dealing with water shortages and drought. But fewer than 10% included ANY mention of climate change. The issues are not yet linked in the public media, much less treated in a thoughtful, solution-oriented way.

She also bemoaned the lack of a coherent Federal policy in Western water policy, something that could likely be said in other parts of the USA. She doesn’t want the Feds to dictate things, but perhaps setting a good example vis-a-vis cooperation, coherence, and collaboration, is not too much to ask.

Another problem: we tend to gravitate toward silos and don’t speak with many others outside our silo, whether the silos are defined by discipline, economics, political party, etc. 

So what about water and climate change? Try these: 1) climate change is a game-changer vis-a-vis water policy; 2) our institutions are ill-equipped to deal with climate change and its water impacts; 3) incremental change in policy will not be enough; and 4) one constituency alone can’t do it all when it comes to effecting policy changes.

Sarah made some suggestions: 1) treat surface water and groundwater as a single entity; 2) integrate land and water planning; 3) reliance on groundwater will limit other options; 4) recognize that environmental water use is for people, too; 5) practice conservation first - don’t always look for more supplies; 6) for storage, remember aquifer storage and recovery; 7) wastewater reuse will impact ag water transfers - may not need as much water transferred from ag uses; and we need to resolve/manage conflict better.

To the above list we could include linking/integrating water quantity and quality.

She warned us not to count on ‘market economics’ alone to solve the water shortage issue, because economics don’t necessarily reflect social choices/values. Example: cities could buy or lease lots of agricultural water, but most people, not just farmers, would likely find large losses of agricultural land unacceptable. As a farmer in the Middle Rio Grande basin once asked me, “You want to see some green fields or a sea of red tile roofs?” 

In summary, a delightful, incredibly informative visit with Sarah, who’s not only very smart, but very nice.  

“Water will be the delivery mechanism for the impacts of climate change.” – Kathy Jacobs, Executive Director, Arizona Water Institute

Two National Research Council committees have just produced publications of interest to AWRA blog readers:

1) Toward a Sustainable and Secure Water Future: a Leadership Role for the USGS;

2) Mapping the Zone: Improving Flood Map Accuracy.

The USGS report can be downloaded free of charge or purchased as a paper copy.

The map report can be read free online but you must pay to download the entire report or individual chapters, or obtain a paper copy.

You can freely download the executive summary of each report.

I certainly support a more significant role for the USGS’s Water Resources Division (WRD). They have outstanding hydrologic and other personnel (although they will be losing a bunch of their best people to retirements); do not have regulatory functions so they are generally perceived as having no axe to grind; and have an excellent, well-deserved research reputation.

The retirement issue is a serious one, however, and is not limited to the USGS, but many agencies.

Here are some statements from the report’s Executive Summary:

The USGS and WRD leadership should refocus their vision to define the national water priorities that they will address and develop a management approach to integrate the WRD programs to meet these needs and lead the nation in water science.

To meet the nation’s water science needs, the WRD’s National Research Program should be aligned around its refocused vision of national program priorities.

The WRD’s Cooperative Water Program needs to be better integrated with the WRD’s focused vision of regional and national water program priorities.

The USGS WRD should involve all research grade personnel in staffing teams to address regional and national research priorities, regardless of location, to increase the agency’s flexibility.

To ensure a secure water future for the nation, sufficient funding should be provided for the USGS to perform its function as a major science agency: to ensure high quality data collection, interpretive programs, and development of essential forecasting and predictive tools to support effective management of the nation’s critical water resources.

 I concur with each of the above. And Ken Salazar was right when he said:

“…that hidden jewel within the Department.” – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, referring to the USGS

Remember Memorial Day!

A few days ago I posted a list of some of my favorite waterbloggers who also Twitter.  I’ve now decided to list all those water Twitters who follow my water Twitter, so check out this list of 90+ water Twitters over at WaterWired.

Some of these Twitters go beyond water, some don’t issue many Tweets at all and some get a bit carried away.

The list is nowhere near an exhaustive list but it’s a good start. If you want to see many more, just look at some of the listed Twitters with large followings and/or who follow many others, and take your pick.

And if you don’t have a Twitter account, get one free at twitter.com.

Tweet away, friends!

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”– Albert Einstein

The May-June 2009 issue of Southwest Hydrology features Beyond Stationarity.

By stationarity we mean, that statistically speaking (e.g., means, standard deviations), the future looks like the past, whether we are talking about precipitation, runoff, or other flows in the hydrologic cycle.The assumption of stationarity allows engineers to design dams, calculate flood return periods, etc., with some degree of confidence. 

Stationarity is a hot topic in hydrology today. I’ve posted on it a number of times over at WaterWired - here is a post from 24 February 2008 that will help you understand what it is and why it’s important to water managers. You can download Chris Milly’s Science article here.

Here is a post from 7 July 2007 with short articles on stationarity. 

Water managers know that climate change will impact their supplies in the future, but the timing and amount of impact that will occur remains uncertain. Articles in this issue explain how climate change projections are evaluated by experts worldwide, why model results can differ widely, and how those results are being reconciled. Examples from communities and utilities illustrate ways to cope with climate change and other future uncertainties, many of which are translatable to other regions.

You can download the entire issue, or individual articles:

IPCC: Handling a Hot Topic, by Eric Barron

Reconciling Projections of Colorado River Streamflow, by Martin Hoerling, Dennis Lettenmaier, Dan Cayan, and Brad Udall

Scenario Planning: Making Strategic Decisions in Uncertain Times, by Ralph Marra nd Timothy Thomure

Resources for Climate Planning and Adaptation, by Holly Hartmann

Coping with Climate Change at a Local Level, by Elizabeth Wilmott

Beyond Stationarity: Building the Center for Change, by Kimery Wiltshire

You can also download the individual departments as well: On the Ground, Government, HydroFacts, etc. There is a new feature, The Water Page, with some great graphics - precipitation, snowpack, storage, etc.

In the On the Ground department there is a great little article, The Surprising Value of Saltcedar, in which Edward Glenn, Pamela Nagler, and Jeffrey Lovich report that recent studies show that saltcedar water use is in line with those of native vegetation and that there is likely little to be gained by ripping up saltcedar stands to increase water availability. And its reputation as a poor wildlife habitat is apparently underserved.

So leave those saltcedar alone!

“One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.” — Unknown

Seed Magazine just published the article, The Truth About Water Wars, in which seven experts debate and discuss the issue.

Okay, so I’m one of the experts.

From Maywa Montenegro’s article:

It’s often been said that the next resource wars will be fought not over oil but over water. Here, seven experts debate the past and present existence of water wars, consider the difficulty of owning a fluid resource, and examine the hot spots for future conflict.

Are Water Wars a Myth or an Imminent Threat to Global Security? Our Panel Responds:

• Mark Zeitoun, environmental engineer
• David Hatton, Australia’s “water czar”
• Fred Pearce, environmental journalist
• Tobias Siegfried, environmental physicist and international relations scholar
• Michael E. Campana, hydrogeologist
• Sandra Postel, water analyst and author
• Peter Gleick, scientist and global water security expert

Here’s a pdf of my essay:

Download Water Wars-Campana

Lots of food for thought. Enjoy!

I’ve posted about climate change and its impacts on water resources, but have not really thought much about the impacts on indigenous communities. Yet these communities will likely suffer the consequences of something they had virtually no role in creating. They’ll just be dragged down with and by the rest of us. No say in the matter, right?

A few weeks I Twittered a CNN story on climate change effects - flooding, melting permafrost - that prompted the Eskimo village of Newtok, AK, to vote to abandon the coastal site for a safer one nine miles up the Ninglick River. Newtok’s 340 residents will be much safer there.

I had forgottten about that story until the recent AWRA Conference when Larry Hartig discussed the plight of Newtok and some 30 villages, many of them native villages, along Alaska’s coast.

But what really piqued my interest was a fascinating presentation at the same conference by Sarah Trainor of the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy (ACCAP) at the University of Alaska. Her talk was titled Climate Change, Water Impacts and Indigenous Peoples: Engaging Native Knowledge in Cross-Regional Comparison Between Alaska, the Pacific Islands and the American Southwest.

I thought the choice of the three regions was appropriate: all three are on the front lines of climate change and water impacts.  

Here is a copy of her abstract:

Download Trainor Abstract

Trainor discussed the video conferencing and the information gleaned. There were some common themes among the three communities:

• Take personal responsibility
• Take action
• Exert leadership
• Realize importance of cross-regional communication
• Form partnerships between Western science and native knowledge
• Recognize importance of native knowledge

The native knowledge aspect is interesting. I used to disparage that until the 1993 hantavirus outbreak in New Mexico. One of the Anglo medical investigators noted that a Navajo elder had remarked that he knew this was going to be a problem because the harvest of pinyon nuts had been very abundant.

Say what?

Well, the virus was spread by rodents, who of course loved pinyon nuts. More pinyon nuts, more rodents. More rodents, more opportunities for human-rodent interaction. Presto! More hantavirus! Duhhh….

You can find more information on the Cross-Regional Dialogue: Climate Change, Water Impacts and Indigenous People. You can access a program flyer. ACCAP, CLIMAS (Climate Assessment for the Southwest) and Pacific RISA are partners, The project is funded byNOAA’s RISA (Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment) program.

In a related vein, Anchorage was the site of the recent Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change, 20-24 April 2009. The consensus declaration closes thusly:

We offer to share with humanity our Traditional Knowledge, innovations, and practices relevant to climate change, provided our fundamental rights as intergenerational guardians of this knowledge are fully recognized and respected. We reiterate the urgent need for collective action

 Here is the complete final declaration:

Download Final_Anchorage_Declaration

It’s worth reading.

There is more information on climate change and indigenous peoples from TEBTEBBA.

My Take: We have a lot to learn, and it’s not all in books and journal articles. 

“We don’t have a lot of time. We have to all listen to one another.” – David Choquehuanca, foreign minister of Bolivia, at the Anchorage Summit

This week we are celebrating National Drinking Water Week,

Here’s Thirstin, the mascot of NDWW.

Read what you can do to protect your drinking water.

And have a tall. cool glass of tap water!

And don’t ever take your drinking water for granted. Too many people have limited or no access to safe drinking water. So why not make a donation to a worthy water charity?

     “You cannot push a cow’s head down unless it is drinking water by its own will.” –Chinese proverb