This project is to create some components to aid in the forthcoming joint scientific conference on Water Systems, Science, and Society Under Global Change to be co-sponsored by UCOWR, NIWR, and CUAHSI and held on June 18 - 20, 2014 at Tufts University. The goals of the joint conference are (1) Integration of National Water Resources Communities to Advance Science. (2) Translating Research to Practice and (3) Networking and Mentoring of Early Career Researchers.
This conference will trigger intellectual conversations relating to future directions in water system research with a particular emphasis on identifying those potential areas of new scientific knowledge discovery that will amplify our ability to solve future water management challenges under global change impact. The participants will benefit from understanding new possibilities and opportunities provided by the three national level organizations and the communication that will essentially leverage the intellectual strengths and reputations of these organizations including CUAHSI, UCOWR, and NIWR. The feedbacks from the audience will also impact the three organizations.
This project provided valuable participant support costs for a collaborative conference among the three U.S. university water organizations: Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR), National Institutes of Water Resources (NIWR) and Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI). The topic of the conference was Water Systems, Science, and Society Under Global Change. The Water Systems, Science, and Society Under Global Change was held June 18-20 at Tufts University in Medford, MA and set a record for attendance for a UCOWR or NIWR conference with 275 registered attendees, including 239 full and 36 one-day registrations and 106 student registrations. Twenty-two students, one post-doc and one plenary speaker received travel support from NSF. While NSF supported 22 graduate students, an additional 84 attended, providing a critical mass of over one hundred graduate students in water resources representing various fields of study. Moreover, students from New England were only slightly over-represented yielding a networking group from all regions of the United States. Rarely does such a group congregate in a professional setting. A proceedings of abstracts and extended abstracts was produced and disseminated to conference attendees via flash drive and is available for download at www.ucowr.org/conferences/2014-conference. The primary goals of the project were: Goal 1. Integration of National Water Resources Communities to Advance Science. UCOWR, NIWR, and CUAHSI all engage and coordinate their institutional members from universities across the nation. UCOWR is known for having very strong linkages with water policy and management communities, with active participation of consulting, agency, and non-governmental-organization partners. CUAHSI is known for having very strong linkages among academic hydrological scientists both nationally and internationally, and NIWR is known for having unique federal/state/university partnerships in all US states and territories through the Land Grant system. A primary goal of this conference was to bridge these communities – aiming to leverage the strengths and reputations of these organizations, facilitate networking among researchers and stakeholders, and to stimulate a multi-disciplinary dialog on the conference themes. Goal 2. Translating Research to Practice. An understanding of human, land, air, and water interactions and their impacts on global change is urgently sought by the scientific community, water managers and policy makers alike – underscoring the need to translate research data and results to broad audiences. The conference explored both basic and applied dimensions of such topics via its broad range of plenary, oral, and poster sessions, and facilitated discussions about complex topics from multiple perspectives via oral and poster presentations, and panel discussions. Given the university communities represented by our primary sponsors (UCOWR, NIWR, and CUAHSI), participants discussed and evaluated the role that University research plays in addressing societal water resource challenges, considering questions such as "When does improved understanding of hydrologic science lead to improved water resources management?" and "What are the barriers to implementation?" Similarly, other sessions stimulated dialog about priorities for water resources research, exploring questions such as: "What are the most critical national and international water resource research challenges in the next 30 years?
