Welcome
Today, regions in every continent experience periodic water stress in one form or another. In places such as China, India, the Sahel, the Middle East, Southern Europe, Northern Africa and the American Southwest, water constraints and their impacts may soon be chronic, posing a significant challenge to the lives of billions of humans. The associated ecological impacts may be devastating.
Sustainable water resource development, planning and management have emerged as a global challenge in the 21st century. A changing climate and increasing water use by rapidly growing populations is constraining fresh water availability in many regions. The problems of water pollution and the lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation are emphasized as scarcity increases. Principles of water allocation and governance need to be revised to promote efficient water use as part of a sustainable development strategy, and to recognize that water supply and consumption are changing in significant ways.
The Columbia Water Center, in collaboration with other Earth Institute units and external partners, is leading intellectual inquiry into the assessment, understanding and resolution of the potentially global crisis of freshwater scarcity.
Recent News from the Columbia Water Center
Updated June 25, 2009
The Water Center is now on Facebook! To become a fan of our work, click here
The Water Center is now on Twitter! To follow our activitiy, click here
Please visit our “Water Security in India” conference webpage: http://www.water.columbia.edu/?id=india_conference. The page includes links to the speakers' presentations, white papers about Indian water security, and pictures from the event. Experts from varied disciplines came from several universities and companies in India and in the US, which led to very interesting and useful discussions and brainstorming sessions. We are now in the process of compiling the knowledge and insight we gained from the conference, and feedback from attendees. We will be using this to formulate next steps for our work in India, including forming new partnerships and refining projects.
Stergios Athanassoglou, a postdoctoral research scientist with the Columbia Water Center, is presenting papers at two conferences this month. He is attending the 17th Annual Conference of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in Amsterdam, where heis presenting 'Simple Mechanisms for Complex Aquifers.' At the 5th Spain, Italy, Netherlands Meeting on Game Theory (SING5), also in Amseterdam, he is presenting 'Imperfect Monitoring may be Perfectly Fine: Differential Game Theory and an Application to Climate Change.'
Tanya Heikkila, the current Associate Director of the Columbia Water Center is sadly leaving us at the end of this month. She will taking up a position as an Associate Professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado - Denver in August. While she will no longer serve as Associate Director, she will still serve as a contributor to the Water Center research projects.
Upmanu Lall, Director of the Columbia Water Center, recently gave two talks on the new field of hydromorphology. He spoke at the New York Academy of Science and at City College of New York.
If you haven't visited our blog, Water Matters @ Columbia, we invite you to do so!
Read more about the China Conference here.
Read more about the India Water Forum here.
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Upcoming Events:
Managing Water and Climate Risks in Agricultural Systems
Thursday, July 2, 2:00- 3:00 pm
Monell Building, Room 137, Lamont Campus
Speaker: Andy McDonald, Research Coordinator, New York State Water Resources Institute; Research Associate, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University
Click here for abstract and bio
[+] all events
Video:
Will India Run Out of Water?
Upmanu Lall and Tobias Siegfried, Columbia Water Center
The Future of Agriculture in India
Tobias Siegfried, Associate Research Scientist, Columbia Water Center
Will China Run Out of Water?
Chunmiao Zheng, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alabama
Reverence for Water: Understanding Religious Resources for Development Work on Water
David Fraccaro, United Church of Christ Representative, United Nations
[+] all video
Funding Opportunities:
Agency name: CSREES
Application Due Date: July 24, 2009
Agency name: Environmental Protection Agency
Application Due Date: June 26, 2009
In the Media:
Bloomberg, June 25, 2009
BrandX, June 24, 2009
Mission Times Courier, June 24, 2009
CBS, June 24, 2009
InventorSpot, June 23, 2009
CNN, June 16, 2009
