DC Report 2: Bob Hirsch Returns

At my NIWR Annual Meeting my state water institute colleagues and I once again were pleased to have Dr. Robert Hirsch, Associate Director for Water of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), address us as he did last year.

In fact, last year I based a post on Bob's "Four Big Water Issues" and it turned into one of my most popular posts. As I said last year, Bob is a very astute observer of the water resources landscape. I would urge you to reread last year's post; the words ring true today.

For today's post I'll once again summarize his comments, which he made mostly in the form of "strategic challenges". I found them just as provocative as last year's.

"Stationarity is Dead" - Hirsch, a co-author on Chris Milly's Science paper, discussed the legendary, now-defunct Harvard Water Program, which began in the late 1950s, and sought to integrate water science, engineering, economics, and policy. He did this to illustrate that the HWP really established the intellectual underpinnings of current water resources planning, management, and engineering - based on stationarity. Hirsch stated that we need to rethink these HWP-produced intellectual underpinnings in terns of nonstationary hydrologic processes.   

SECURE Water Act - Hirsch called this a "signifcant piece of legislation", and said it was the first he's seen that deals with water science and data with national scope - it's not some parochial, "my watershed" act.It discusses climate change and water resources, and provides R&D funding for instrumentation. He paid tribute  to its creator, Mike Connor of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Connor really did his homework, and "absorbed" a lot from a variety of sources. So there is such a thing as a "good law" at the Federal level [my comment].

Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) - the future of water storage, and it is here now. The recent NRC Report on managed underground storage of recoverable water is significant, as it describes the challenges facing ASR and artificial recharge (AR): geochemical/water compatibility issues; recoverability of stored water; ownership of the water; injection of chlorinated water (disinfection by-products - trihalomethanes, etc.); subsidence; pathogens.

Geologic sequestration of CO2 - hydraulic and geochemical questions remain. Not a "silver bullet".

Non-point source pollution - Are we making any progress reducing non-point source pollution? Are best management practices (BMPs) effective? There is lots of "noise" in the system - can we "tease out" the "human signal"? With respect to biofuels producton - what are the implications of increased corn production?

Climate change - Hirsch said he hears a lot about how climate change will make hydrologic extremes "more extreme" - for example, floods will get a lot worse. He rightly asked, "Where is the evidence for all this?"

Water for America Initiative - Hirsch concluded by discussing this, particularly from the USGS vantage point.

All in all, another very good afternoon with Dr. Hirsch.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell