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The Berkeley Water Working Group

All real-life water related problems are multi-dimensional in nature at once economic, political, institutional, technological and hydrological and can be resolved only through multi-dimensional dialogue. To foster this much needed dialogue, the Berkeley Water Working Group (WWG) brings together graduate students and faculty members from such diverse departments as Law, Agricultural and Resource Economics, Energy and Resources Group, Civil Engineering, ESPM, College of Environmental Design and Sociology. Researchers working in related areas such as climate change, risk analysis, or national security could also participate.

The WWG is sponsored by Berkeley's Institute of International Studies, and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainable Resource Development. It meets once a month to discuss a particular water problem, and at least two approaches to its resolution. These approaches could be regional comparisons or methodological comparisons. Each session features two speakers followed by questions and discussion, for a total of (up to) two hours. 

Our Fall 2000 Speaker Series has just been announced.  We shall focus on issues at the interface of the social and natural sciences. These could include large dams and their alternatives, river restoration, and technically feasible low - intervention alternatives for water scarce regions. 

For more information, please contact Isha Ray (isharay@socrates.berkeley.edu). 
 

For Spring 2000, the areas covered were: future water demand and supply (Peter Gleick / David Zilberman), water trades and markets (David Sunding / Brent Haddad), natural resources and sustainability, (TN Narasimhan) and water allocation among new and traditional users (Joseph Sax / Ben Crow).

Below is a complete list of speakers for Spring 2000.
Each of the speaker's talks are available in Adobe Acrobat (PDF)  format and can be read using Adobe's free Acrobat Reader. You can dowload the Acrobat Reader at the Adobe site. 

  1. Anticipating future demand and supply 

    2. February 3, 2000 - Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. 
  2. Technology, incentives and demand

    3. February 3, 2000 - David Zilberman, Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley. 
  3. Water trades in California

    4. March 3, 2000 - David Sunding, Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley. 
  4. Water re-allocation in theory and practice

    5. March 3, 2000 - Brent Haddad, Environmental Studies, UC Santa Cruz. 
  5. Natural resources, society and sustainability

    6. April 6, 2000 - T.N. Narasimhan, Materials Science, UC Berkeley. 
  6. Water allocation among new and traditional users

    7. May 4, 2000 - Joseph Sax, Boalt School of Law, UC Berkeley. 
  7. Water allocation and gender -- an analysis from Bangladesh

    8. May 4, 2000 - Ben Crow, Sociology, UC Santa Cruz.