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BIRDSALL-DREISS LECTURESHIP 2012

In 2012 Professor James S. (Jay) Famiglietti is serving as the Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer of the Geological Society of America, when he will lecture internationally on global water cycle change and freshwater availability. The lectureship is made to one person annually by the GSA Hydrogeology Division; Famiglietti is the 34rd GSA Birdsall-Dreiss Lecturer and is Professor in Earth System Science and Civil & Environmental Engineering and Director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling.
He is offering two talks:
 
1. Water cycle change and the human fingerprint on the water landscape of the 21st Century: Observations from a decade of GRACE

Over the last decade, satellite observations of Earth’s water cycle from NASA’s GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) mission, have provided an unprecedented view of global hydrological change and freshwater availability. Since its launch, the mission has helped to confirm that precipitation, evaporation and continental discharge rates are increasing, that the mid-latitudes are drying while the high and low latitudes are moistening, and that the hydrologic extremes of flooding and drought are becoming even more extreme. Importantly, GRACE has exposed the human fingerprint of water management practices such as groundwater use and reservoir storage, which raises many important issues for climate, water, food and economic security.  Moreover, the GRACE mission has enabled us to peer beneath Earth’s surface and  characterize the worldwide depletion of groundwater aquifers, raising significant concerns about the potential for heightened conflict over transboundary water resources.  In this talk I review the basics of how the GRACE mission observes terrestrial and global hydrology, what new information the mission has provided since its launch in 2002, and the implications for the future of water availability and sustainable water resources management.
 
and

2. A strategy for accelerating the development of hydrological models: Societal needs, observational requirements and public communication
 
While the development of hydrological and land surface models has progressed rapidly over the last few decades, a significant acceleration in model development is required in order to address critical societal issues of water, energy and food availability and security. In particular, major advances are needed in the areas of observations (e.g. of water cycle variability and change, of subsurface soils and hydrogeology, and of streamflow and groundwater levels), model development (e.g. of models that integrate the major components of the human and managed water cycles), data assimilation (e.g. of algorithms that can readily incorporate in situ and remote observations of asynchronous space-time frequency) and of a framework for integrating models and data (e.g. for access to data and simulation results, for running models, and for performing analyses). In this presentation we discuss these needs in detail, and highlight recent efforts in California and at the national scale (i.e. with the Community Hydrologic Modeling Platform [CHyMP]) to develop a modeling and data integration framework that can be applied across scales up to continental and global scales. Finally, the responsibility of the hydrologic research community to convey such important observational and simulation needs to resource managers, environmental decision and policy makers, and the general public, is underscored.
 
At the request of interested institutions and pending availability, Jay will present one of the two lectures listed above.
 
To request a lecture and for more information about the Birdsall-Dreiss Lectureship please go to the Geological Society of America's (GSA) website.
 
Jay's "Water 50/50" blog will cover his journey as he will hold fifty lectures in fifty weeks, giving a global lecture tour. The posts published will primarily be a journal of Jay’s thoughts and experiences during the lectureship.
 

WATER 50/50

FIFTY LECTURES IN FIFTY WEEKS: THE 2012 BIRDSALL-DREISS DISTINGUISHED LECTURESHIP. A GLOBAL LECTURE TOUR DELIVERING THE MESSAGE ABOUT OUR CHANGING WATER CYCLE, GROUNDWATER DEPLETION AND THE FUTURE OF FRESHWATER AVAILABILITY.

UPCOMING LECTURES

2013

February 18 - March 2, Middle East (Israel, Jordan, Palestine) TBD

February (TBD) Tufts University, Medford, MA

 

PAST LECTURES

2011

November 10, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

November 17, Georgetown University, Washington, DC

November 30, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX

2012

January 18, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA

January 25, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

February 1, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV

February 6-10, ISSI Earth’s Hydrologic Cycle, Bern, Switzerland

February 15, Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona, CA

February 20, AGU Chapman Conference, Kona, HI

February 22, University of Hawaii, Manoa, HI

February 27, National Ground Water Association, Emerging Issues in Groundwater Conference, San Antonio, TX
Famiglietti To Speak In February At NGWA's Emerging Issues In Groundwater Conference In San Antonio
Water Online

March 7, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ

March 15, Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin, TX

March 19, School of Law, University of California, Irvine, CA

April 5, Cal State University, Long Beach, CA

April 9, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA

April 11, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

April 13, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

April 16, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM

April 24, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

April 26, Brown University, Providence, RI

May 9, National Ground Water Association, Ground Water Summit, Garden Grove, CA

June 5, University High School, Irvine, CA

July 5, NSF REU Workshop, UC Irvine, CA

July 5, ICS Summer Program, UC Irvine, CA

July 23, Wolfensohn Foundation Fund, New York, NY

July 24, Clinton Foundation, New York, NY

July 27, Empowering Sustainability on Earth, UC Irvine, CA

August 23, Urban Water Institute, 19th Annual Conference, San Diego, CA

September 12, University of California, Berkeley, CA

September 14, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

September 18, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

September 19, U. S. Department of State, Washington, DC

September 20, Stimson Foundation, Washington, DC

September 24, DOE Water Cycle Workshop, Washington, DC

September 27, Water Education Foundation/Environmental Defense Fund/California Water Federation Meeting on Remote Sensing, San Diego, CA

October 12, CWA-40, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

October 17, Iowa State University, Ames, IA

October 25, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, TX

October 26, Environmental Science Institute, Hot Science, Cool Talks, University of Texas at Austin, TX

University of Texas, Austin
Environmental Science Institute
Last Call at the Oasis: Will There be Enough Water for the 21st Century?

"However, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be bringing my Invasive Hunter Academy to the prelecture fun for the “Last Call at the Oasis: Will There be Enough Water for the 21st Century?” presentation by Dr. Jay Famiglietti on October 26, 2012." - Commander Ben

October 31, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

November 6, Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting, Charlotte, NC

November 8, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

November 13, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI
 
November 14, American Water Intelligence Water Summit, Chicago, IL

November 19, Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA

November 29, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH