For millenia, water scarcity and security has caused both wars and international cooperation. But with increasing populations, precipitation changes due to climate change, and unbalanced resource allocation, water issues are becoming more and more relevant to global stability. Case in point: the Syrian civil war. CSU alumnus David Bonomo provides a look into the issue.
Chris Conner (M.A. ’11) has spent the majority of his career working to improve the lives of those experiencing homelessness in Denver. Inspired by the rhetorical traditions of his communication studies degree, Conner recently helped one man share an unlikely story of living and sleeping rough on the banks of the South Platte River.
Big Love by Charles Mee has been called a big, beautiful, fantastic mess. Just like love, or perhaps like water. Water plays a major role in the on-stage dynamic, and the key to success is collaboration between the multiple theatrical shops. From the set designer to the technical director, all members of CSU’s Theatre worked together to make the production a success (and not a mess!)
In his latest book of poetry, Walks Along the Ditch, Bill Tremblay (CSU Professor of English, 1973 to 2006) introduces us to the flow that has long provided a cadence to his life: poetry, water, t’ai chi. The poems walk us along the ditch with the poet: the water, the familiar Mountain West geography, the “smell of money” from Greeley, the morning song of meadowlarks.
What can a historian do in response to life-threatening flooding like we’ve seen in Northern Colorado? Quite a lot it turns out. By documenting the communication, cooperation, and activity of disaster responders, historians capture the knowledge and information-sharing process that is so crucial to future response and recovery.
Water lies at the heart of what it means to be human and what it means to flourish in our own place in the world. From a philosophical and ethical perspective, our particular understandings and interpretations of water reveal our sense of identity (the who), our sense of place (the where), and our meaning and purpose in the world (the why).
Renowned CSU economist Edward Barbier has a few ideas about the world’s increasingly serious water crisis. He says we have mismanaged our freshwater supplies by not charging enough for the natural resource and by sticking to an antiquated system of determining water rights. By looking at governance, policy reform, and new technologies we could protect our freshwater ecosystems and secure sufficient water for our world’s growing population.
Jake Adler, political science graduate, is at a fellowship with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education at the EPA’s Office of Water working on issues of resource recovery, water monitoring, innovation, and reuse. Adler’s team’s research and work focuses on the whole water cycle and follows the One Water concept, thinking more broadly about the entire water cycle, in a collaborative manner, to work toward water resource sustainability.
From scarcity and drought, to equitable distribution across a growing population, to contamination from mining and other extractive industries, water in Colorado is the nexus for interdisciplinary research that fulfills CSU’s land grant mission.
Water equity is one of the 21st century’s key environmental justice issues. Sociologists work directly with water stakeholders, including farmers, engineers, urban developers, conservationists, lawmakers, and more to bridge communication gaps and ensure that legal, economic and social barriers are considered when policies and collaborative efforts are designed and implemented.