Toward Sustainable Groundwater in Agriculture - Linking Science with Policy

...that was the title of our international conference this week in Burlingame/San Francisco. Complete with pre-conference workshops and a post-conference tour of lovely Sonoma Valley and it's dairies and wineries. The conference was an amazing gathering of movers and shakers, thinkers and tinkerers, decision-makers, policy makers, planners, farmers, ag-industry representatives, consultants, students, even high-school students, and researchers. Attendees came from California, from across the United States, and from around the globe - Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, Australia. All had one thing in common - a shared interest in groundwater resources of agricultural regions and in agriculture's role in sustaining groundwater resources for future uses in agriculture and for other uses.

If you want to get a flavor for the information from the conference - Michael Campana blogged about the meeting this week (thank you, Michael!) - he was one of our final panelists. And here are my own personal - and much drier - "classroom notes" from the conference, covering about a quarter of the presentations. Mind that these are unedited and I am not guaranteeing either completeness nor accuracy! Vivian Jensen generously provided her notes as well.

Groundwater depletion and groundwater degradation, how much we know about it, how we assess and monitor that, how we regulate (or not regulate) and manage it, and what we can learn from each other in protecting groundwater resources for future agricultural and other uses - these were the main themes of the conference.  The program speaks for itself and we will have the many resources generated at the conference, including abstracts, presentations, and selected videos available at the conference website by August 2010. A special journal issue will be in preparation shortly.

This was a gathering of a unique (and very fun!) group of people, many of whom had never met before. But many of us found that we had much to share and learn from each other.

As co-chair of the conference, I am deeply grateful to the program council for their enthusiasm, creativity, and tireless efforts in planning and putting together an impressive speaker list; to my executive conference committee, Rita Schmidt-Sudman and Sue McClurg from the Water Education Foundation and Cathryn Lawrence from UC Davis, to the wonderful folks at the Water Education Foundation (Jean Nordmann, Diana Farmer, Rebecca Scott, Robin Douglas, Susan Lauer, Beth Stern), and to my students Katie Lockhardt, Reid Bryson, Tyler Hatch, Tomer Schetrit, and Vivian Jensen for the hard work needed to make this conference possible on the organizational end and for ensuring that the meeting itself went so very smoothly; to the session chairs for their confident guidance through a packed and tightly orchestrated program; to the speakers for the high quality of their presentation and the shared inspiration for their work; to the audience for their lively and engaging discussions; to the conference sponsors for their financial support (University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Erler and Kalinowski Inc, Kings River Conservation District, and GEI Consultants, and - indirectly through travel support - UNESCO and FAO); and to the Groundwater Resources Association for their help in bringing exhibitors and visitors to the conference.