1:00 PM - 2:15 PM | Sessions 10, 11, & 12
Session 10: Changing Institutional Cultures for Land and Water Integration
The purpose of this session is to focus on how to better connect land and water, with emphasis on how people are dedicated to addressing policy, planning and management challenges and finding opportunities to implement institutional change. Speakers will present several examples of how such integration has occurred and been embedded in new and adaptive ways that government agencies, non-profit organizations, and stakeholders do business. The speakers will explain why and how land-water integration occurs in their specific example, how the integration came about, constraints that had to be overcome to make integration occur, and the compelling needs or incentives that led to effective strategies for better integrating land and water. Speakers will pay particular attention to what their examples teach us about how to work within and across government and community institutions in fostering land-water integration for healthy human and ecological communities. The examples illustrate how people can foster such integration as they articulate principles, design and implement policies, enact programs, engage in planning, and work to change institutional cultures and practices. Attendees at this session will gain insights into lessons learned in finding what might be unexpected avenues for integration to occur, and how institutional mechanisms established for other purposes can potentially be used to emphasize land-water integration in the future.
Moderators:
Joanna Endter-Wada, Utah State University
Faith Sternlieb, Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, a center of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Presenters:
- Ted Boling, formerly with Council on Environmental Quality, Washington, D.C.; Michael Smith, GEI Consultants, Sacramento, CA; Lisa Welsh and Joanna Endter-Wada, Utah State University, Logan, Utah; "The National Environmental Policy Act: National Policy for Integrative Analyses and Assessments"
- Burton Suedel, Engineering with Nature, "Engineering with Nature: A US Army Corps of Engineers Program for Implementing New Water Infrastructure Principles and Designs"
- Faith Sternlieb, Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, a center of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, "Growing Water Smart: The Planning and Practice of Integrating Land and Water in Arid Region Urbanization"
- Michelle Madeley, Environmental Protection Agency, "Water Utilities as Anchor Institutions: Impacting the Social and Economic Fabric of Communities and Regions"
Session 11: One Water Planning & Collaboration
During this session, participant will obtain a deeper understanding of the “One Water” approach and how it can benefit cities in managing water in a more holistic manner through institutional collaboration and integration of other benefits such as land use planning, equity, environmental and social justice. The session will be structured in three parts. First, the fundamentals of One Water will be presented to give everybody a common understanding of the definition and benefits of One Water for cities large and small, urban and rural, and for water scarce or water rich geographies. Second, three deep dives case studies will be presented from cities that have already embarked on this journey such as Los Angeles, Denver, and Honolulu. During the last segment, participants will be separated in virtual breakout rooms based on a topic interest poll (One Water Planning, Institutional Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement, and Climate Change Resilience). Each breakout room discussion will be facilitated by professionals with extensive One Water experience. In addition to the breakout room discussion, several Q&A segments are included to foster a lively discussion to develop a deeper understanding of how One Water approaches promote healthy and vibrant communities.
Moderators:
Inge Wiersema, Carollo and
Scott Berry, US Water Alliance
Presenters:
- Azya Jackson, Los Angeles Sanitation
- David Jula, City and County of Denver
- Matt Gosner, City and County of Honolulu
Session 12: Development and Application of a Hydrologic and Stakeholder Driven Conservation Prioritization Framework with Economic Valuation
This session would begin with two presentations followed by a panel to describe and discuss an innovative framework for prioritizing and valuing conservation of natural lands within the Catawba-Wateree watershed. The framework is designed, and now refined, with the inputs of local stakeholders to (1) quantify the projected deterioration in water availability and quality across the hydrologic network arising from land use change and (2) identify and economically value targeted conservation efforts to prioritize geographic “hot spots.” These prioritized hot spots are locations where land conservation, either through purchase or easement, could be instituted to prevent losses to drinking water utilities and local stakeholders in terms of availability and quality of supplies. Currently conserved lands are also valued to provide managers a point of comparison and justification for investing in conservation actions. The combination of quantitative change metrics and economic values at a scale applicable to land parcels has enabled local conservation groups and the Catawba-Wateree Water Management Group (CWWMG; a consortium of drinking water utilities and Duke Energy) to use this framework as a decision support tool for surface water protection and watershed management planning. Basin-wide funding mechanisms and cooperation among agencies for conservation are a topic of continuing discussion within the basin.
Moderator:
Vicki Taylor, Catawba Wateree Initiative/Catawba Wateree Relicensing Coalition
Presenters:
- Barry Gullet, Catawba Consulting, PLLC (former Chair Catawba-Wateree Water Management Group)
- George Van Houtven, RTI International