Plenary Speakers
Peter H. Gleick, Ph.D.
Trends and Technologies Shaping Western Water
The 21st century is bringing new challenges to the water problems facing the western U.S., including new economic priorities, poorly managed population growth, and unavoidable climate change. These water problems will not be solved by applying 20th century thinking and technologies. Dr. Gleick, president and co-founder of the Pacific Institute, will offer some unconventional thoughts about the myths and realities of western water and some suggestions for moving toward long-term, sustainable solutions.
Dr. Gleick’s research and writing address the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources. Dr. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert who has been named a MacArthur Fellow, a "visionary on the environment" by the British Broadcasting Corporation, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and is the author of The World’s Water biennial reports. Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Gleick’s presentation is sponsored by Pima County.
Gerald E. Galloway, Jr.
IWRM: Bridging Policy and Science, or Just Another Buzzword?
Everyone is doing Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), but are they? There is strong support everywhere for comprehensive planning but does that mean support for IWRM? Is IWRM a top-down or bottom-up process? The advent of this new approach leaves plenty of room for challenging discussions and a dose of reality.
In addition to his duties as president of the AWRA, Dr. Galloway is Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering at the University of Maryland and a visiting scholar at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Institute for Water Resources. He has conducted two National Water Policy Dialogues in his presidency of AWRA and is committed to furthering interdisciplinary approaches to problem-solving for water policy and resource issues. Dr. Galloway received his bachelor’s degree from West Point, has master’s degrees in engineering, public administration, and military art and science from Princeton, Penn State, and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, respectively, as well as a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina.
Luncheon Speaker
Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr.
Water Law vs. Hydrologic Reality in the Colorado River Basin
The Colorado River Compact of 1922 and 1948 will continue as the framework for water allocations of the seven Colorado River Basin states. As shown by tree ring studies and over a century of river monitoring data, cyclical flood and drought are always with us. Changes in precipitation and runoff patterns due to climate change only dramatize the need for an open and flexible basin-wide river management and conservation decision-making process.
The Hon. Gregory Hobbs is a Colorado Supreme Court Justice, and serves as vice president of the Colorado Foundation for Water Education as well as co-convener of Dividing the Waters, a western water judges’ educational project. Before his appointment to the Colorado Supreme Court in 1996, Justice Hobbs practiced law for 25 years, specializing in water, environment, land use, and transportation. He earned a B.A. in history from the University of Notre Dame, and a J.D. from Boalt Hall at the University of California at Berkeley. Justice Hobbs is the author of In Praise of Fair Colorado: The Practice of Poetry, History, and Judging (Bradford Publishing Co., 2004) and Colorado, Mother of Rivers: Water Poems (Colorado Foundation for Water Education, 2005).