Day 1 of the conference, Toward Sustainable Groundwater in Agriculture, is now history. It's being held in California and that's entirely appropriate, since California's agricultural groundwater use has hardly been sustainable. Maybe this conference will portend the future.
Nahhh.....
But all kidding(??) aside, yesterday was very good and I'm anticipating more of the same today and tomorrow.
The Water Education Foundation and UC-Davis are the organizers and UCD's Dr. Thomas Harter (check out his Random Groundwater Notes blog) is the chair. The conference has a decidedly international flavor, with Indians comprising the largest foreign contingent. Harter noted that some potential attendees were unable to obtain USA visas. As an aside, I hear that more and more from foreigners these days - that coming to the USA for conferences is a hassle and so they look elsewhere for meetings to attend.
Here's the program.
I'll provide my impressions, which will necessarily be limited, as there were four concurrent sessions in the afternoon.
Morning Plenary Session
Yesterday's plenary session was very good: the speakers were Harter, Paula Landis of California DWR, and Tushar Shah of IWMI.
Harter gave a very good overview of global groundwater in agriculture including some sobering assessments of what the future may hold. He asked some very good rhetorical questions at the end: Is Homo sapiens an obligate or facultative groundwater species? How obligate are we? How facultative are we?
Landis, who directs DWR's Integrated Regional Management program, spoke about the state's treatment of groundwater, which could best be described as a laissez-faire approach, as California does not regulate groundwater on a statewide basis; it's done locally. Some reasons why local control is preferred: 1) groundwater basins have diverse characteristics so a "one size fits all" approach is not a good strategy; 2) availability of alternative supplies varies; 3) uses vary from region to region; 4) locals best understand their groundwater systems and uses. After hearing this, a colleague leaned over to me and said that local control also means that OPM - other people's money - will be used to rectify problems (e.g., land subsidence) caused by local mangement of groundwater systems. Landis concluded by discussing groundwater data gaps and the confidentiality of well logs. She then lauded a recent law that allows the state to monitor groundwater elevations. Welcome to the 20th century! But California will need $1B that an $11B bond issue would provide. Tune in again in November.
Tushaar Shah, author of Taming the Anarchy, gave a fascinating talk about the comparison between groundwater use for irrigation in South Asia (SA; India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). He speculated that groundwater could do for SSA what it did for SA in terms of eliminating famines. He emphasized that because of economies of scale that are not present in SSA it would be better to focus on groundwater use by smallholder agriculture, which would not be a threat to the groundwater resource and catalyze the region to develop its economies. He indicated that decades of focusing on large-scale surface water irrigation projects have not done much for SSA: only 5% of its cropped land is irrigated, versus 55% in SA.
Shah suggested that treadle/manual irrigation pumps should be forsaken in favor of small, cheap, electric pumps, following the lead of Bangladesh. He would empower women by using APIM - Assisted Pump Irrigation Markets, by which 6-8 young women in a villlage would be trained to function as community Irrigation Service Providers (ISPs). He posited that 3-5 million ISPs could be established in SSA for about $1B - $1.5 B USD, a literal drop in the bucket.
Shah noted that this would require a thorough assessment of SSA's groundwater resources and the development of an agrarian business model.
His presentation evoked a question from Dr. Stephen Foster, former head of hydrogeology at the British Geological Survey and now at the World Bank, who wondered whether the hydrogeology of SSA was adequate for this approach. Interesting that Foster did not mention a BGS program that might help realize Shah's vision. I wondered whether the electricity infrastructure was available to use electric pumps. But Shah's idea is novel and deserves more attention. Lord knows we haven't succeeded in helping SSA avoid famines.
Shah made an interesting comment: groundwater, not democracy, has freed India and Pakistan from famines (apologies to Amartya Sen).
Odds 'n Ends
Jim Beck of Kern County Water Agency: if you do water banking (as in groundwater replenishment) be sure to document the benefits to avoid litigation and other unpleasantries.
John Bredehoeft: if you're engaged in conjunctive use of SW and GW, note that shutting off wells to avoid streamflow depletion may still require years for the stream to recover. Planning should be done on a decadal basis. And bless you, John, for using an analytical solution based on the complementary function (erfc). Brought back memories of Carslaw and Jaeger (aka 'Coleslaw and Yogurt').
Robert Glennon gave a wonderful luncheon talk based on his book Unquenchable. I nevcer get tired of listening to him.
Randall Hanson of the USGS gave a very informative lecture about modeling efforts in the Central Valley.
Virginie Gillet noted that social sustainability is as much of an issue as hydrologic sustainability.
Great seeing the following: John Bredehoeft, Reagan Waskom, Randy Hunt, Vicki Kretsinger, Dave Rudolph, Tim Parker, Elena López-Gunn, Susan Roberts, Mike Hightower, Graham Fogg, Bridget Scanlon, Bill Alley, Robert Glennon, Cathy Ryan, Howard Passell, Klaus Hinsby, Sharon Megdal, Jean Fried, Stefano Burchi, and the irrepressible Shrikant Limaye.
And it's always wonderful to see a former student:Carolyn Kneiblher, who is doing well at Geosyntec in Oakland. She took a class or two from me at the University of Nevada-Reno in the 1980s.
Nice being around folks who appreciate and understand the importance of groundwater. We are preaching to the converted, but it fills me with the desire to go out and do battle with the forces of ignorance.
Lots of conference sponsors, but where was the National Ground Water Association?
"There is no shortage of water in the Mojave Desert unless you build a city where no city should be." -- Edward Abbey, quoted by Robert Glennon
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