Presentations

National Security is Dirt… and Knowledge
Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Miami, March 13, 2012
Climate Information Applications for Resilience: Opening Wedge or Just Plain Sledge?
Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, Des Moines, Iowa March 1-4, 2011
Keeping it Together in Destabilized Times: Looking Past the Near Term
US Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, Conference on Sustainability of Irrigation Districts, Reno, NV; 4-7 June 2009
NOTE: There is substantial overlap in the USCID, AWRA, and DARCA presentations, as each was directed to a different audience but urging parts of the same message. An additional rendition was presented, for yet another audience, at the Universities Council on Water Resources, in July 2009. The argument about looking far enough ahead and avoiding making choices in the present which limit future potential was the main subject of a presentation to the Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop in March 2009, listed below.
Saving All the Pieces, Staying Grounded.(Climate, Water, Soil, Cities).-- a policy argument, with news…
American Water Resources Association, 2009 Spring Specialty Conference, Anchorage, Alaska, 04-06 May
Transfer Mechanisms for Alternatives to Buy-and-Dry -- More than Just Water
This is the full set of materials that was far too long to present at the Ditch and Reservoir Company Alliance meeting in February 2009. In 2002, at the first annual meeting of DARCA, I urged taking leasing seriously, and development of institutions that would lower the transactions costs of organizing leases, as a way to relieve pressure on agricultural water. We've all come a long way since then, and this is the current set of recommendations from my experience and observations. The references -- sources for information -- are in the "speaker's notes" which are accessible through Microsoft Powerpoint (tm). If this material is inaccessible, please contact me. This is also a very large file, so downloading a copy may be a problem; contact me about that, also.
National Security is Dirt (and water, and climate responsiveness): Rethinking the Loss of Western Irrigation Water
"Ten years from now, Americans could be as concerned over the loss of the nation's prime and important farm lands as they are today over shortages of oil and gasoline."
Taking Water from the Farm: A Framework for Considering Water Transfers from Irrigation
This presentation was made to the Universities Council on Water Resources meeting July 2008. This is an effort to go beyond the "considerations for water transfers" which were developed by the Arkansas Basin Roundtable Water Transfers Guidelines Committee. The Committee report is a great advance for Colorado, but I want to get beyond only thinking of the reduction of adverse impacts, to working on long-term agricultural capacity and rural economies. The references and some discussion in "speaker's notes" have been updated in some cases.
Moving Water in the Urbanizing West: Riparian Issues in Agricultural Areas in Colorado -- Quick Tour* (modified for posting)
This presentation was part of a session organized by J. Wiener and K.A. Dwire for the American Water Resources Association Riparian Issues Conference -- "Working at the Water's Edge" in June 2008. This presentation works from the same general set of information on the water transfer problem, but reports on issues discovered in a large literature review. Some are summarized in the Wiener et al. 2008 paper in Water Resources Impact, and more will be described in a larger publication in preparation as of October 2008. This presentation offers graphics illustrating the biological issues as well as the water transfer problem, so there is some but not at all complete overlap with the other presentations posted here.
Toward Better Water Transfers in Colorado and Cumulative Cost Avoidance
Presentation to US Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, Conference on Urbanization of Irrigated Land and Water Transfers, Phoenix May 2008. This is intended to cover a lot of issues and try to give the full set of concerns in one place, so it is more balanced than the others posted. There is, as one would expect, some overlap with each of the others, but not the emphasis on the way to think about the future as well as the present that is in the UCOWR 2008 presentation, or the on the biological issues in the AWRA 2008 presentation.

Selected Presentations on the Internet