Month: April 2011

Water for Food: Not Just An International Conference

Rice fields near Chiang Mai
Rice fields near Chiang Mai

May 1st – May 4th I’ll be splitting my time between my duties at the unviersity and the third annual international Water for Food conference.

You can register, see the program, and find out more about the conference on the official website.

This conference was first held in 2009, the proceedings, presentations, and photos are available to all:

Future of Water for Food Conference, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, May 3-5 2009

This conference led to the creation of the Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska. This institute received a $50 million founding gift commitment from the Robert B. Daugherty Charitable Foundation and is part of the $1.2 billion Campaign for Nebraska.

2010 Water for Food Conference, Lincoln, NE May 2-5

This conference and institute are unique in that they attempt to address all the aspects of the complex questions of how do we responsibly use and preserve our fresh water resources while providing adequate food for our growing population? Water usage practices, infrastructure, manufacturing, legal, social, agricultural, and health issues all must be addressed to solve this complex problem.

Agriculture consumes 70 percent of all water usage. Without reform future generations will be unable to grow sufficient food due to lack of water, this is because if aquifers are sufficiently depleted they will be unable to recover and people in the effected area will have to import all water from outside areas or move. What causes this lack of water? In some areas it is the increase in crops needed to feed a growing national and global population, in others like California it is caused by the building of more homes and businesses than the local water supply can safely support and renew itself, and also due to the growth of ornamental high water use grasses and plants in areas that are naturally a desert. All of these things contribute to a largely human created condition of drought.

In order to combat these issues the institute will pursue fundamental and applied research, policy, and educating the public. They will do this by developing more efficient methods of agriculture through practical changes to existing practices and the use of technology to more efficiently use the water which is needed to grow agricultural crops. They will also research and form guidelines and tools that can help water managers, consumers, and the public make informed and effective decisions when it comes to water management.

The institute will also develop international partnerships and fellows programs to increase the diversity of discipline and approaches to the water for food question. Additionally, the institute will fund graduate fellowship and provide undergraduate scholarships to encourage highly qualified students to pursue studies at the Water for Food Institute.

The Institute also seeks to develop a global peer reviewed journal specific to the Water for Food problem and establish a global clearing house for Water for Food information.

Because many of the problems caused by the dilemma of producing enough Water for Food are more serious in developing countries the institute will seek to develop partnerships with these developing countries. Many of these developing countries already have active aid organizations in them that may be good partners for collaboration in reaching out to these developing nations.

For those who are interested in issues in water management you might be interested in this piece written by my Uncle who practiced water law for most of his career in the state of Kansas.

Comparing and Contrasting the Roles of the Division of Water Resources and the Groundwater Management Districts in Groundwater Management and Regulation
Leland E. Rolfs, 2007, Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy 15(3)
http://www.law.ku.edu/publications/journal/pdf/v15n3/rolfs.pdf

Rice fields near Chiang Mai, Thailand photo by echiner1, CC by Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

6 Reasons to Write

Computer on Library Table
Laptops: for the Wandering Writer

Periodically the question of why people should write comes up, there’s several benefits to writing on a regular basis, here’s six reasons I write:

Better than bookmarking.

There’s a reason my website has several resource guides and posts about specific references, I hate having to hunt for links and I’m often out and about without the luxury of my personal computer. I also dislike signing up for third party services which may or may not vanish overnight. If I really want to keep track of a resource, or information on a subject long term I create a post or resource guide. This gives me access to the things that I think are important from any computer with web access and total control of if my list of links. When I write about links in a post I tend to annotate links that lead to something especially interesting or important. I don’t have to remember where I found things long term because I have it available through my webpage.

Finding your voice.

One comment which is often made about new writers is that they sound like someone else, and while their writing topics are interesting, the writing itself lacks an original voice. This is a difficult one for me because my default mode of writing for many years was writing detailed step-by-step instructions for laboratory procedures. This experience honed my instruction writing skills but hampers writing interesting presented content. I tend to get list happy from time to time which probably releases some pent up instructional writing desires.

Organizing your thoughts.

One of the main reasons I write posts like this is to organize my thoughts on a subject into a cohesive whole so that I can then explain them to someone else. If I can’t express myself in a page or two of writing on a subject how can I speak about it with someone else? It’s interesting to write about a specific topic because it forces you to do a little extra research, extend your knowledge and really think about the stance you are taking.

Other people might be interested too.

One thing that always surprises me is which posts are the most popular. You never really know what topic (if you write on a variety of topics like I do) is going to appeal to people. Given the semi-permanence of leaving a comment you might not get much if any feedback through your blog, that doesn’t mean that no one’s reading you. It’s always a pleasant surprise when you meet someone for the first time and you find out they read something that you wrote. Maybe you happened to touch on the one resource which solved their research problem, or maybe they liked the way you covered a topic. On the Internet you never know who or how many people your voice might reach, it may be one person, or it may be a couple hundred; writing should be mainly for yourself but I think if you help just one person with something you’ve written you can count that as a major win!

Practice makes perfect.

I recently came across an essay I wrote as an undergraduate that I was very proud of at the time and cringed. Fortunately I’ve written quite a bit between 1997 and now, other may not agree but I think my writing quality has definitely gone up over the years. The more you write in any medium the better all of your writing will become. One advantage to writing blog posts is the ability to correct errors as quickly as you can login and type the corrections. If you want to be a better writer the number one thing you have to do to improve is plant yourself in your chair and write.

Sleep, I like it!

This one may seem like a non sequitur but I’m one of those people who has a hard time shutting their brain off at night. I can and have laid there perfectly still breathing deeply for over an hour while my brain refuses to shut up about a subject. Whether it’s writing a blog post, jotting down research notes, or just a note on something I want to look up, writing helps quite the noise in my head so I can sleep. Sleep is good, it keeps you sane, at 6 or less hours of sleep there is a noticeable decrease in mental function of all people (no you cannot train your body to function at full capacity on less than an average of 7 hours of sleep per day, although a combination of naps and night time sleeping works just fine.)