Afternoon Breakout Sessions | Day One: Monday, July 19

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3:15 PM - 4:30 PM ET | Sessions 4, 5, & 6

Session 4: Innovation & Green Infrastructure: Rediscovering Water in the Built Environment through Design (Extended Time)

We live in a water paradigm defined by 19th century laws, 20th century infrastructure, and a 21st century climate and population. Sustainable design solutions that rise above this system and embrace a "one water" approach are important to the creation of an ever more resilient built environment. This session will bring together three design professionals to share their stories, dreams and real world examples of how creativity and innovation can transform our future and refocus the infrastructure of our world on the innate human connection to water.

Moderator: 
Brian Farling, Jones Studio

Presenters:

1. Brian Farling, Jones Studio
2. Josiah Cain, Sherwood Design Engineers
3. Mia Lehrer, Studio MLA

Session 5: Using Land Use-Water Use Indicators in the American West

The complex relationships between land use and water use are becoming ever more critical in the Western United States. Rapid growth in recent decades within the American West region has caused increased land-use intensification and rural-to-urban land transformation. This increased intensity and transformation has occurred at a time where water demands are rising and water supplies are shrinking. Though the need for integrating land and water use management has been recognized, both sectors remain siloed. For instance, land management, development, policies, and practices have not addressed water sustainability until recently. This points to the need for practical strategies and tools to realize the benefits of integrating water management and land management. This proposed session focuses on the process of designing strategies and using tools for integrated land use and water use in the American West.

Moderators: 
Jacob Petersen-Perlman, East Carolina University
Tamee Albrecht, University of Arizona

Presenters:

1. Tamee Albrecht, University of Arizona and Jacob Petersen-Perlman, East Carolina University. “Assessing Progress Toward Integrated Land and Water Management: An Indicator Framework for Colorado River Basin Communities.” 
2. Gretel Follingstad, University of Colorado-Denver. “Evaluating Water Collaboratives for Indicators of Drought Resilience.” 
3. Steve Malers, Open Water Foundation. “Implementing Cross-Jurisdictional Basin-Scale Information Websites as a Foundation for Community Planning.”
4. Alexander Ross, Portland State University. “Negotiating Climate Resilience: A Collaborative Approach to Water Use and Development in an Exurban Area.” 

Session 6: Ensuring One Water Delivers for Healthy Waterways

One Water offers tremendous opportunities for improving how water is managed. However, the available implementation frameworks are not providing adequate guidance or methodologies for ensuring that implementation of One Water principles will result in actual on-the-ground benefits in achieving “healthy waterways,” which is a key component of the One Water approach. There is an assumption that implementing a One Water approach will automatically produce environmental benefits. However, One Water’s emphasis on local water capture, efficiency and reuse, if not carefully considered, may actually pose an inadvertent threat to river flows, starving natural systems and downstream communities of needed flows. Our proposed session will focus on our recent report, Ensuring One Water Delivers for Healthy Waterways: A Framework for Incorporating Healthy Waterways into One Water Plans and Projects. We propose to explore the imperative to proactively plan for and integrate healthy waterways into the One Water planning process and to provide specific guidance on how to do so. Our panel of experts will explore why this topic is important, what’s at stake, and how communities can effectively tackle this important challenge.

Moderator: 
Jennifer Walker, Texas Coast and Water Program National Wildlife Federation

Presenters:

1. Carrie Thompson, Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University
2. Sarah Diringer, Pacific Institute
3. Myron Hess, Principal, Tributary Consulting