The final conference program will be determined by the content of submitted and accepted abstracts.   The following list of topics is provided to encourage potential conference participants to consider the full extent of multidisciplinary topics dealing with water resources.  It is by no means an all-inclusive list.  Interested persons are encouraged to submit abstracts of their work, which address these and other topics. 

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• BMP’s – design, performance and implementation
• CAFO’s – impacts on water quality
• Irrigation efficiency
• Irrigation – present and future
• Nutrient management
• Fate and transport of fertilizers
• Erosion and sedimentation
• Pesticides
• Waste management

• Ecosystem migrations
• Effects of climate change on drought
• Effects of climate change on floods
• Impacts on ecosystems
• Impacts on freshwater availability and supplies
• Impacts on glaciers and glaciation
• Impacts on water quality
• Rain and snowfall issues and distribution
• Sea level changes
• Water management in a changing climate

• Beach erosion
• Coastal zone management issues
• Coastal restoration
• Desalinization
• Development impacts
• Dwindling fish and marine mammal populations
• Harbors and port facilities
• Hypoxia
• Ocean disposal of wastewater
• Salt water-freshwater interfaces
• Salt water intrusion
• Subsidence

• Balancing development with ecosystem health
• Biological sequestration of carbon
• Buffers
• Design and construction of created wetlands
• Developing partnerships with competing water users
• Ecosystem restoration/mitigation
• Environmental impacts of diversions
• Environmental impacts of impoundments
• Financing environmental/ecosystem restoration – environmental economics
• Instream flows - ecosystem requirements
• Invasive species
• Phreatophytes
• Restoration successes and failures
• Riparian restoration
• Sedimentation in ecosystems
• Socioeconomic aspects of riparian areas and management
• Stream ecology
• Sustainability

• Fire and water quality
• Hill slope hydrology
• Forest roads
• Reforestation of recharge areas
• Timber harvesting and flooding
• Timber harvesting and water quality

• Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR)
• Artificial Recharge
• Confined and unconfined aquifers
• Deep well injection
• Groundwater movement (flow systems)
• Groundwater protection/sustainability
• Hydrogeochemistry
• Impacts of mining
• Natural infiltration, recharge and source area
• Nonrenewable groundwater
• Springs
• Storm water infiltration
• Surface water/groundwater/ecosystem interactions
• Water level changes
• Water quality in aquifers

• Adaptive management
• Communicating science to policy makers
• Decision support systems
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Innovative techniques
• Internet
• Modeling
• Real time data
• Remote sensing
• Technology information and dissemination

• Appropriate technologies for developing areas/Nations
• Cross-border compacts, transfers, and allocations
• Globalization of water issues
• Hydrophilanthropy
• International regulatory conflicts
• Management principles
• Privatization of utilities; infrastructure
• Responsibilities of developed nations to developing nations
• Sustainable water resources development
• Technology sharing
• Water rights issues
• Water security
• World Water Forums

• Aging infrastructure
• Creative financing of infrastructures
• Drain to disposal infrastructure
• Green infrastructure
• Harbors and port facilities
• poundments/dams – construction, restoration, removal
• Levees and flood walls
• Navigation in inland waterways
• River channelization, dredging
• Source water to tap infrastructure

Local Issues

This track is reserved for issues that relate to the specific community, area or watershed where the Annual Conference is being held.  See examples at the end of this section.

• Acid mine drainage
• Alternative supplies
• Disposal/treatment of cooling water
• Downstream impacts of mine tailings
• High temperature brines
• Industrial uses
• Mining uses/impacts on water quality
• Reuse
• Waste management and disposal

• Alternative supplies
• Balancing development and the environment
• Drought planning
• Forest planning
• Future supplies
• Integrated water resources planning
• Land use planning
• Reclaimed water
• Sustainable development
• System security
• Urban planning
• Watershed protection

• Adapting government programs to management and regulation
• Communicating with policy makers
• Compacts
• History of water laws/policy
• Innovative marketing/banking
• Integration of water quality and water quantity management
• Legislative initiatives, state and federal
• Market-based solutions to scarcity or overabundance
• Meeting and managing demand
• National water vision/strategy
• Political hydrology
• Range planning and management
• Safeguarding water supplies
• Water law
• Water transfers- benefits/costs
• Native American water issues

• Best Management Practices (BMP)
• Economics and sustainability of protected floodplains
• Energy production
• Flood forecasting, warning, preparedness
• Flood protection
• Flooding and floodplain management
• Fluvial geomorphology
• Innovative technologies of storm water management
• Management of combined sewer overflows
• Managing point source pollution
• Mitigating storm water damage/retrofitting
• River operations – flow management
• Storm water management – innovative technologies
• Stream channel processes
• System operation and maintenance
• Watershed planning and management

• Community based restoration and management
• Financing restoration and volunteer efforts
• Hydrologic changes – effects on urban streams and floodplains
• Infiltration and runoff
• Land use changes
• Residential land stewardship
• Urban storm water impacts
• Volunteer restoration and management initiatives
• Water saving techniques and initiatives

• Art
• Literature
• Music

• Alternative energy sources and water
• Energy – water nexus
• Hydropower

• Effects of dredging and other stream management techniques on water quality
• Emerging contaminants
• Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs)
• Impacts of storm water on water quality
• Implementing TMDL’s
• Laboratory methodologies
• Low flow/high flow/combined TMDL’s
• Monitoring
• Nanotechnology
• Nutrients and nutrient management
• Pathogens in watersheds
• Pesticides
• Salinity removal techniques; successes and failures
• Source water quality protection
• Turbidity and sediment impacts
• Water quality standards and regulations

• Certification of water resources professionals
• Education at K-12 levels
• Licensing or registration of water resources professionals
•  Post K-12 education
• Sustainability issues - watershed management and stewardship
• Water in literature, culture, art, and music

• Alternative supplies
• Conjunctive use
• Conservation
• Development
• Source water protection
• Sustainability
• Treatment
• Quality

• Conflicting issues
• Created wetland successes
• Design and construction of created wetlands
• Effects of acid rain
• Euthrophication
• Lake management and restoration
• Mitigation
• Nutrient impacts
• Regulations
• Reservoir management and restoration
• Sedimentation
• Shoreline maintenance and restoration
• Tourism and recreation
• Watershed/wetland/lake interactions
• Wetland functions and values
• Wetland restoration and protection

• Water Resources Sustainability
• Water Resources Education and Information
• Water Resources and Climate
• Global Water Problems
• Infrastructure Concerns
• Watershed Management Problems
• Institutional Effects on Water Availability
• Concerns in Water Resources Management Decisions
• Water and Energy
• Concerns about Water Quality

• Puget Sound Basin initiatives
• Columbia River Basin
• Working across borders
• Advances in understanding fish biology
• Regulations
• Stream Restoration
• Fish Friendly Design (i.e. levees and bank stabilization)
• FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) response to NOAA’s Biological Opinion

• Transboundary Water Issues – Regional and International
• Local Agencies, Non-Profits, or Projects Working with Tribes

• Seattle’s Green Roof program
• Design Innovations
• Regulations
• Ports and waterfronts