According to an interdisciplinary group of UC Davis faculty and researchers, more than 245,000 people in California are at risk for exposure to harmful levels of nitrate in their drinking water. CCWAS IGERT trainers Thomas Harter, Jay Lund, Graham Fogg, Richard Howitt, James Quinn, and Josh Viers contributed to a comprehensive study of nitrate in groundwater in the Tulare Lake basin and Salinas Valley. Lund remarked, “Cleaning up nitrate in groundwater is a complex problem with no single solution...This report should help inform discussions among people involved with drinking water, waste discharge, and agricultural issues, including various local and state government agencies.” You can read an op-ed written by Harter and Lund at the Sac Bee website. For more information, including flash video, see the UC Davis news site. The entire report is available at a dedicated UCANR website.

Addendum, 19 March. The Sac Bee editorial page staff weighed in this morning:

Implementing [the report] recommendations shouldn't be seen as a confrontation with agriculture. The UC Davis researchers were clear about the value of farming to this region. At the same time, California can't create a sacrifice zone for water drinkers in farm areas. The state has a legal obligation to enforce the non-degradation provisions of the Porter Cologne Act Water Code. Those provisions are being violated. That must end.

Two things of interest!

On March 27^th, the Sacramento Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers Environmental Water Resources Institute is holding a workshop on climate change and water at the Sacramento Convention Center, California's New System Yield - A Paradigm Shift: Increasing System Yield in the Face of Uncertainty/Protecting the Future Beneficial Use of Water.

You can get information about program and preregistration here.

And, the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research will sponsor the International Summer School on Climate Change in the Marine Realm, at the AWI Wadden Sea Station on the island Sylt and at the University of Bremen from September 10 to 24, 2012. For complete information, see

http://www.awi.de/de/forschung/nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen/
summer_school_on_climate_change_in_the_marine_realm/

or email climateschool@awi.de.

Applications will be accepted until March 31, 2012; stipends cover travel, board, and lodging. 

Coral under an Antarctic ice shelf, taken during the AWI Polarstern expedition ANT-XXIII/8. Photo courtesy of J Gutt /Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

UC Davis graduate students who study the impacts of global warming on the climate system and biosphere can apply now for the Ernest E. Hill Fellowship. These $3,000-$5,000 awards, supported by a generous gift from Mr. Hill and the Hill family, can be used for research, travel, small equipment purchases, and professional development via scientific meetings, courses or workshops.

In establishing the Ernest E. Hill Fellowship, Mr. Hill wrote,

Overwhelming evidence has established that humans have caused climate change. Our attention must now focus on the impacts of global warming and carbon-neutral alternative energy solutions. After some 40 years in the nuclear field, I have learned that many technical enterprises are ultimately controlled by political, economic, and environmental considerations. This was very important in my decision to sponsor a graduate fellowship fund at UC Davis. The analysis of our present situation in global warming and the possible means to correct the problem is very multidisciplinary. The conventional wisdom that it is largely an engineering problem is not correct. I was very pleased that UC Davis has a very broad view of the problem and that four colleges are interested in doing this research in the global warming area. Research in this area is not only desirable but essential.

For more information, please see the call for applications.

Deadline: submit your application via email no later than 16 April 2012.  See the call for specifics.

On 15 May 2012, UC Davis will host a conference, Climate Change and California's Water Supply.

The conference, sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, Air Quality Research Center, and the CCWAS IGERT, will bring together a wide array of stakeholders to address the challenges facing the state of California posed by predicted changes in climate and concomitant drought conditions.

The conference will include keynote presentations, discussions, and a poster session. 

The Old River at the confluence of the San Joaquin River. Photo courtesy of M. Burns, CA Department of Water Resources

Topics include ... climate projections and their principal uncertainties the impact of climate change on water supply, and possible ramifications for agriculture power generation and riparian/delta ecosystems implications for California’s $37.5 billion agricultural industry and air and water regulation developing sound public policy in response to and in anticipation of a changing hydro-climate.

Please see the conference web site for more information about the tentative conference program, registration, submitting an abstract, and travel.