Second annual Water Law, Policy and Science Conference
Water Management and Policy in the Great Plains: Implications of Drought and Climate Change
April 7-8, 2005
Nebraska Union
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, Nebraska
Gleick Headlines April Water Management and Policy Conference
By Steve Ress
Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, will speak at this spring’s Second Annual Water Law, Policy and Science Conference at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The April 7-8 regional-level conference will be at UNL’s City Campus Union. Conference theme is “Water Management and Policy in the Great Plains: Implications of Drought and Climate Change.”
Gleick is co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security and is an internationally recognized expert on global freshwater resources, including hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources.
Widely published, two of his more recent books are The World's Water 2002-2003: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources and Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources.
Gleick will address the two-day conference’s first plenary session on “Water Management and Policy: Increasing Competition for a Scarce Resource.”
Other notable speakers are James Detjen, director of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. He will speak on "The Role of the Media in Framing Debates on Environmental Policy."
Philip Mote, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington will speak on “Preparing for Climate Change in the Pacific Northwest,” and Thomas Stewart, a professor in the Center for Policy Research, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the State University of New York speaks on "Uncertainty, Prediction, and Error in Water Management.”
Local experts, many nationally known in their respective fields, include Don Wilhite, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at UNL on understanding the hazards and reducing societal vulnerability to drought; and UNL geoscientist Sherilyn Fritz on what can be learned from the historical and paleoclimate record on drought.
Conference sessions focus on panel presentations and discussion of climate change and drought; drought history and predictability; climate change in a fragile ecosystem: water in the Great Plains; decision making under uncertainty: water management and policy instruments to mitigate drought and climate change; and translating science into policy and to the public, which will be a panel discussion led by Carolyn Johnsen of the UNL School of Journalism.
Those unable to attend the actual conference can opt to view it online at a reduced rate.
The conference is co-sponsored by UNL’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, School of Natural Resources, Department of Geosciences, College of Law, Water Center, Water Resources Research Initiative, and School of Journalism Public Policy Center.
