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"Resilience from Below: Proactively Managing Groundwater to Sustain Communities and Nature in an Uncertain Future"
Presented By:
Maurice Hall, Ph.D., Associate Vice President, Ecosystems-Water
Environmental Defense Fund
INTRODUCTION:
Groundwater provides a wide array of services to support our economy and communities. Perhaps most obviously, it captures distributed rainfall and delivers it to wells. It also sustains rivers and streams, supports groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and serves as an incredible storage reservoir. Yet, except for a few notable exceptions, our groundwater basins, these amazing natural infrastructure facilities, are largely managed passively, if they are managed at all. Even the most successful examples of proactive groundwater basin management tend to be focused primarily on one service – sustained supply to wells. Inevitably, this passive or singularly focused groundwater management means that other groundwater services are compromised over time. With a bit more attention and sophistication, however, the multiple benefits that groundwater basins provide can be preserved, and in some cases, enhanced.
In his David Keith Todd Distinguished lecture for 2019, Maurice Hall will share his vision on how more holistic and inclusive groundwater management can increase the resilience of our water supply and sustain and enhance the services that groundwater basins provide for a wide range of stakeholders. Maurice will share some suggestions on how the flexibility offered by California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act allows for innovative approaches that support multiple benefits and how engaging stakeholders beyond water interests in shaping groundwater management can lead to more resilient rural communities and strengthen regional cooperation.
SPEAKER BIO:
Maurice Hall, Ph.D.
As associate vice president of water for the ecosystems program, Maurice Hall oversees Ecosystems-Water Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) work to revitalize working rivers and their ability to provide a resilient water supply. He focuses on developing collaborative water management approaches to meet ecosystem needs alongside the needs of farms and cities. Approaches central to this work include shaping water transaction programs that achieve resilient water supplies while protecting the environment and vulnerable communities, improving information systems to inform smart management of water resources, and shaping water governance that proactively considers multiple objectives and responds to climate change.
Maurice joined EDF in May 2016. Previously, he served as the water program lead for the Water Funder Initiative, a collaborative effort to identify and activate promising water solutions through strategic philanthropic investments in the United States, starting in the American West. He also spent seven years with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) where his roles included science and engineering lead for the California Water Program. His work focused on improving our understanding of the relationship between hydrology and water-dependent ecosystems and developing integrated water management strategies to restore and protect ecosystems. Maurice holds a B.S. from the University of Tennessee Chattanooga and a PhD in Earth Resources, Watershed Sciences from Colorado State University.
Moderator BIO:
Jenny Pensky
Jenny Pensky is a PhD Candidate in hydrogeology in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at UC Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on how managed aquifer recharge (MAR) can be used to improve both water supply and quality. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, Jenny worked as an environmental consultant in New York City on soil and groundwater remediation projects. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Barnard College of Columbia University. In addition to her research, she is a co-leader of Geoscientists Encouraging Openness and Diversity in Earth Sciences (GEODES) at UCSC and assists with coordinating the David Keith Todd lecture series for the Groundwater Resources Association of California (GRA).