How do we manage water infrastructure and aquatic ecosystems given increasing demographic, economic, and climatic uncertainty? A new paper from a team of ecologists and engineers explores what robust, resilient water management should look like through a shared language, ethics, and methodology.
Published recently in Nature Climate Change, the paper is entitled "Sustainable water management under future uncertainty with eco-engineering decision scaling" and is available as a reprint here: http://rydberg.biology.colostate.edu/poff/PoffPublicationsPDF.htm <http://rydberg.biology.colostate.edu/poff/PoffPublicationsPDF.htm> A companion capacity building site has also been developed to show how the paper represents a significant shift in how we merge insights into ecological sustainability with solutions-oriented engineering. This site can be reached here: http://agwaguide.org/EEDS/index.html <http://agwaguide.org/EEDS/index.html> A journalistic overview of the paper can also be found here: http://www.sesync.org/news/building-better-dams-starts-with-ecological-insights <http://www.sesync.org/news/building-better-dams-starts-with-ecological-insights>. Supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in the US, the lead authors are LeRoy Poff, an aquatic ecologist with Colorado State University, and Casey Brown, an engineer with the University of Massachusetts. Other co-authors represent the Deltares, OECD, USGS, US Army Corps of Engineers, Loughborough University, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), and SESYNC staff members.
