Student Opportunities at Illinois Water 2014

One of the biggest reasons we started holding Illinois Water conferences on the University of Illinois campus is because it's easier for students to attend. In addition to all the talks and plenaries, we’ve created several opportunities uniquely for students. We hope you’ll take advantage of them in October.

Poster Session: The student poster session will take place on the evening of October 14. Students will have an opportunity to present their research to fellow conference attendees and compete for best poster awards. The deadline for poster abstracts is July 9, 2014. You can submit a poster abstract through this form.

Registration Scholarships: If you have submitted a poster or presentation, you are eligible to submit an application for a registration scholarship. While we try to keep the registration costs as low as possible, sometimes low isn’t low enough where you are a full time student. And if you’re not presenting, you’re still welcome to apply for a scholarship, although we try to accommodate presenting students first. If you only want to attend one session or wander through the posters, don’t worry, you don’t need to register at all. Do stop at the registration table and say “hi,” though. We love to know who attended the conference, and we could probably get you a free pen.  

Water Careers Panel: As you know by now, we here at IWRC love talking about water jobs, so of course we organize a career panel every Water Conference. This year we’ve even invited a Water Jobs alum to join our panel and tell you about the joys of water planning. Other guest speakers may include an aquatic ecologist at a nonprofit, a stormwater engineer, and a college professor. The panel will take place during lunch on Wednesday, October 15 and include lots of time for questions.      

Summer Conferencing

We wanted to take a moment today to mention several conferences taking place this summer that may be of special interest to our audience.

• The joint Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR), National Institutes for Water Resources (NIWR), and Consortium for Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Conference will take place this June 18-20 at Tufts University in Medford, MA. This is the first time these three organizations have held a joint conference, and it promises to be a dynamic event. This year’s theme is Water Systems, Science, and Society Under Global Change, and it will feature multiple plenary speakers discussing everything from the world’s water challenges to water reuse to agricultural water security. A preliminary conference program can be downloaded here, while complete registration information is listed here. While it’s too late to submit posters and abstracts, you can still attend and soak in all the offerings. Don’t forget to send us postcards!

• The CUAHSI Biennial Colloquium 2014: “Water across the Critical Zone: Scaling from Local to Global Hydrology” will take place July 28-30 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV. The conference will focus on integrating hydrology, ecology, and geological information to address Critical Zone science, and includes plenaries, concurrent sessions, a poster session, workshops, and special events. The National Conservation Training Center is located in a stunningly beautiful portion of West Virginia and an easy drive to attractions like Harpers’ Ferry National Historical Park. Early registration discounts apply until June 6, and abstracts for posters are accepted until May 30. There are also student funding opportunities available.  

Talking Drought

As we reach the end of a dry, and now hot, August, we’re reminded of how very close drought always is to states with a large agriculture sector. In fact, State Climatologist Dr. Jim Angel tweeted today that this is the driest August since 1893, and in Champaign County, we’ve only received 0.36 inches of rain. We normally get about four.

We’re not the only ones thinking about drought. Dr. Ximing Cai, who provided the impetus for our Drought Workshop, explains to me why he’s concerned about these drought cycles and what he hopes this fall’s workshop will accomplish.

So what inspired this workshop?

People are forgetting the 2012 Drought, although the damage was record-breaking. More attention is needed to prepare for a revisit of 2012 Drought. It is hard for any scientist to claim that his or her research helped with the drought damage reduction during the 2012 Drought, even though numerous scientists have been conducting drought-related research. Why? It seems that the research community does not really understand the needs of farmers and stakeholders for drought mitigation; meanwhile the latter may not understand the possible value of drought research. I hope this workshop can illustrate this gap and enhance the communication between research and practice.

How would you like to see the workshop used to address data needs and research gaps in Illinois?

Policy makers have been quiet and still keep a crisis management and business as usual [approach], i.e., depending on tactical measures and ignoring strategic ones. Which begs the question, should risk management implementation be given serious consideration? Research should provide support for shifting crisis management to combined risk and crisis management. I hope the workshop attendants, especially the stakeholder representatives, can share some specific opinions and suggestions to this issue, which is important for research, policy, and the public.

Why are you interested in drought in your own research?

I started drought research since I joined UIUC. My group has been studying how climate change might affect drought frequency, intensity, and duration using the state-of-art climate change prediction models. We further examined how meteorological drought propagates to hydrologic and agricultural drought. Following that, we address the question in terms of strategic measures for drought mitigation: should we do something now or should we wait and see? Specifically for Illinois, we find some changes that are unfavorable for the traditional rain-fed agriculture: precipitation declines in the crop growth season while increasing in the post- and prior seasons, along with increased temperature. A big question facing the agriculture community is: should large-scale irrigation be allowed to maintain the corn-belt or should we change the land from corn-belt to wheat-belt (which grows in winter-spring season)? More frequent drought visits will force the communities to make the choice now rather than “kick it down the road”. We need researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers to discuss the big decisions and their implications for additional research activities, policy changes, and practices.

Want to join in this discussion? Join us October 1, 2013 in Peoria, IL to discuss these questions and more at our Drought Workshop. To register or for more information, please see our blog post on this topic. 

Drought Workshop

The Drought of 2012 made some unpleasant new records in Illinois history. Shipping nearly halted on the Mississippi, drinking water supplies dwindled in the City of Decatur, crops withered, and Lake Michigan reached its lowest level ever recorded.

Drought of 2012--photo by Irene Miles

But it also inspired the development of collaborations among the Illinois academic community and the state and federal agencies working on water management. To help foster these connections, the Illinois Water Resources Center is hosting a Drought Workshop on October 1, 2013 as part of the festivities at the Governor’s Conference on the Management of the Illinois River System in Peoria, IL. The goals of the workshop are to identify the data needs and research gaps for agency management of drought and develop a white paper of possible solutions and actions.

List of Speakers

• Overview—Dr. Brain Miller, Director, Illinois Water Resources Center/ Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
• Deficiencies in Illinois’s Drought Response Authorities—Arlan Juhl, Director, Office of Water Resources, Illinois Department of Natural Resources
• Challenges in Forecasting and Monitoring the 2012 Drought—Dr. Jim Angel, State Climatologist, Illinois State Water Survey
• USGS Water Monitoring to Support the State of Illinois Governor’s Drought Response Task Force during the Drought of 2012—Gary Johnson, Chief, Hydrology Data Section, Illinois Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey
• NRCS Needs and Recommendations for Drought Related Agricultural Research—Kerry Goodrich, State Resource Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Drought Management Strategies for the Chicago Metro Area—Dr. Martin Jaffe, University of Illinois Chicago/ Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
• The Value of Hydroclimatic Forecasts for Agricultural Drought Mitigation and Preparedness—Dr. Ximing Cai, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Workshop attendance is FREE, but does require registration. To register, contact the Illinois Water Resources Center (iwrc@uiuc.edu) or choose the Illinois Drought Workshop option under the registration page of the Governor’s Conference on the Management of the Illinois River System. 

The Workshop will be held from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel in Peoria, IL, room number forthcoming. Full information regarding the Governor’s Conference on the Management of the Illinois River System is available here.

Lecture Series at Illinois Sustainable Technology Center

One of the great parts about being a water center is that people send you notices about all kinds of interesting and exciting things. Like this lecture series being offered by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center—we know from personal experience that ISTC puts on a good lecture. And, if you’re a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student, you can earn credit for attending these presentations (plus a little bit of homework). Any questions, you can contact Nancy Holm at the ISTC (244-3330 or naholm@illinois.edu).

Sustainability in Action: Technology and Practice

For:   Advanced undergraduate or graduate students

When:   Thursdays noon – 1 pm

Credit:   1 hour credit as ENG 498-Sustainable Technology, CRN 61837

Location:   Class alternates between 218 Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB) and ISTC, One Hazelwood Dr. (on bus route Yellow #1) 

Organized by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), this seminar class focuses on real-world application of sustainable technologies and practices in electronics, energy, waste, and water.  The class includes lectures by expert speakers, associated readings, discussions, and short HW or quiz questions. 

Topics include:  Making electronics more recyclable; developing paper products from waste biomass; how dredging can give rise to new parks; using hydroponics to grow food in the city; and new methods to create clean water from wastewater.  Students will gain an appreciation for the opportunities, challenges, and way forward in each area. 

The seminar titles and location will soon be posted on the ISTC web site, which also has an archive of past presentations: http://www.istc.illinois.edu (click on “seminars”).

Want to send us information about interesting and exciting happenings related to water in Illinois? Our contact information is here and here.

Governor’s Conference on the Management of the Illinois River System

The Biennial Governor’s Conference on the Management of the Illinois River System is occurring this October 1-3, 2013 in Peoria, IL at Four Points by Sheraton. The planners have sent us these exciting details to help us entice you to join us there:

On October 1, Lt. Governor Sheila Simon will host the Illinois River Coordinating Council meeting which includes an open forum for public questions and comments.  Members of the Mississippi and Wabash-Ohio River Coordinating Councils will also be in attendance. Through a public dialogue, the Councils coordinate initiatives, projects, and funding to promote the ecological health of Illinois’ rivers.

Featured keynote conference speakers include Michael Reuter, The Nature Conservancy; James Baumgartner, Caterpillar, Inc.; Mike Doherty, Illinois Farm Bureau; Wendell Shauman, Shauman Farm; Dave Wethington, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and Ryan Burchett, Mississippi River Distilling Company. Speakers will touch on various topics addressing industry and conservation, Illinois in the global economy, the Great lakes & Mississippi River Interbasin Study, and working locally with river resources.

Concurrent sessions will address infrastructure needs and beneficial uses of sediment, local community and agricultural actions to protect river resources, watershed history, wildlife habitat, river science and more, offering perspectives on regional, national, and global impacts of the River system. These sessions are designed to present advancements in agricultural and environmental technologies; improve understanding of economic and societal benefits of healthy ecosystems; and recognize activities across Illinois through local community actions to restore the health of this globally important watershed.

To top things off, the Illinois Water Resources Center will not only be staffing an exhibit so you can stop by and talk water (perhaps collect our autographs), but we are also hosting a workshop to discuss the 2012 Drought. We’ll delve into the workshop more in weeks to come, but in the meantime, if you would like to learn more about the conference, or register, you can check out the event website here. Registration prices go up September 12, so make your plans soon. And remember, the conference is open to everyone and has plans for all interest levels, including conservation tours and a guided bus trip.