Integrated Watershed Management Planning and Research

Status of the Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Plan and Proposition 50 Grant Application process

2007-08-07T23:46:00.001-07:00

The San Diego County Water Authority, the County of San Diego, and the City of San Diego, are jointly hosting a Public Workshop to provide interested parties with an update on the status of the Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Plan and Proposition 50 Grant Application process.

Workshop Information:

Date & Time: August 14, 2007, 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Location: San Diego County Water Authority

4677 Overland Ave., San Diego, CA 92123

Agenda Topics: IRWM planning background; update on IRWM Plan Status; Propositions 50, 84; Public comments, questions, and answers.

Background:

Working together for the first time are the many diverse stakeholders in the area of water management - water and wastewater agencies, storm water permit holders, land use agencies, river conservancies, environmental and watershed advocacy groups, and the public. The IRWM Plan reflects a comprehensive approach to water resources planning that integrates ongoing local planning efforts and perspectives in order to maximize water management benefits and resolve any existing or potential conflicts. The IRWM Plan identifies programs and projects that best achieve the Region’s goals to optimize water supply reliability, and protect and enhance water quality - while providing stewardship of our natural resources.

The 2007 IRWM Plan will be utilized to apply for project implementation grants available through Propositions 50, 84, 1E, and other anticipated funding opportunities.

Status of the Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Plan and Proposition 50 Grant Application process

2007-08-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

Workshop Information:

Date & Time: August 14, 2007, 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Location: San Diego County Water Authority

4677 Overland Ave., San Diego, CA 92123

Agenda Topics: IRWM planning background; update on IRWM Plan Status; Propositions 50, 84; Public comments, questions, and answers.

Background:

The 2007 IRWM Plan will be utilized to apply for project implementation grants available through Propositions 50, 84, 1E, and other anticipated funding opportunities.

Digital Waterheds and Sustainability

2007-02-11T16:13:00.001-08:00

Addressing complexity through synergy
NCSA Chief Science Officer Bob Wilhelmson discusses the critical synergy of scientists working together and in collaboration with computer scientists, application and algorithm researchers, software developers, service providers, educators, and students.
http://access.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Stories/Synergy/

Feb. 22
Implementing the WATERS Vision: Creating a Digital Watershed for Integrated Management in the Chicago Metropolitan Area
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/IWMC2/

Institute for Sustainability of Intensively Managed Landscapes
This page uses wiki technology
http://sci.lis.uiuc.edu/ISIML/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

2006-12-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

* Water, Water, Everywhere
Understanding and addressing the many issues connected to water is complex, but NCSA is developing a cyberenvironment to make tackling the problems easier for the nation's researchers.
http://access.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Stories/cleaner/

* NCSA: Creating cyberenvironments
With our partners, NCSA creates secure, easy-to-use interfaces to instruments, data, computing systems, networks, applications, analysis and visualization tools, and services. Whether they're atmospheric scientists or astronomers or environmental engineers, people use these cyberenvironments to get a systemic view of their entire discipline, to manage complex projects, and to automate and combine processes. Here, we show you some of the key parts of the cyberenvironment landscape.
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SC06/interactive/

* The Age of Networks
Programmed by Nosh Contractor, leader of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) research group at NCSA, this lecture series examines the workings of networks across the sciences, arts, and humanities. More information on upcoming speakers, as well as archived video and other materials from past talk, is avaialble online.
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/Networks/

* Upcoming events at NCSA:

December 18-19: Spatial Thinking in the Social Sciences and Humanities
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Conferences/SpatialThinking/

Regionalizing Integrated Watershed Management

2006-06-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

The UCSD Urban Studies and Planning Program, in collaboration with the San Diego Supercomputer Centers SALT lab (Sustainable Archives and Library Technologies), presented at the Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, San Diego, CA (May 21-24, 2006). The presentation included a poster describing an initiative called Regionalizing Integrated Watershed Management. The aim is to build cyberinfrastructure linking environmental health science and biomolecular techonologies to environmental monitoring and risk assessment at the scale of city-regions (in global context). Click here for a jpeg of the poster.

This work ties in with GPEIG efforts to advance cyberinfrastructure for progressive regionalism.

Environmental Justice Pilot Project

2005-12-01T22:52:00.000-08:00

MEETING OF THE REGIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
San Diego State University, Imperial Valley Campus
720 Heber Avenue, Calexico, California
Wednesday December 14, 2005
5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

The State Water Resources Control Board in conjunction with the Calexico New River Committee will be hosting a meeting of the Regional Advisory Committee on the New River Environmental Justice Pilot Project. This is the fourth of a series of public meetings that will be scheduled to discuss the Pilot Project. The goal of the Pilot Project is to develop and implement a children's environmental risk reduction plan using recommendations provided by the Regional Advisory Committee. For more information about the Pilot Project, please visit the Cal/EPA website at http://www.calepa.ca.gov/EnvJustice/

WET project part of RWBC display at ESRI Conference

2005-07-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Regional Workbench Consortium (RWBC), an initiative of UCSD's SBRP Community Outreach Core and Research Translation Core will be on display in the San Diego Convention Center at the ESRI International Users Conference (July 25-29). The ESRI exhibit is one of the world's premier showcases of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). It is well worth exploring. A Map gallery opens to the public on Monday evening. The conference web site is at:
http://www.esri.com/events/uc/index.html

2005 Clean Water Summit

2005-03-30T11:51:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, July 7, 2005, Project Clean Water will host the 2005 Clean Water Summit at the University of San Diego's Institute for Peace and Justice. The annual Summit provides a focal point for stakeholder participation and provides an important opportunity to validate and fine tune the priorities and directions of Project Clean Water working bodies.

Registration and agenda information will be available in the near future. The event is free and everyone is invited to attend. However, space is limited, so please register early if you plan to attend.

For more information, please contact:

Michele Stress - 858-694-2794 or michele.stress@sdcounty.ca.gov

Vikki Denslow - 858-495-5368 or vikki.denslow@sdcounty.ca.gov

Collaborative Projects and Research Database

2005-02-12T23:50:00.000-08:00

This searchable database contains research projects concerning collaboration about management or regulation of natural resources and other processes of interest to researchers, participants in collaborative processes, agencies, environmental organizations, facilitators, mediators and others. You can search this database for groups, projects, issues, process types etc.
http://www.cbcrc.org/php-bin/projects/projectSearch.php

2005-01-12T19:46:00.000-08:00

New Federal Partnership to Foster Innovative Watershed Solutions

EPA and the Corps of Engineers have signed an agreement to facilitate joint work in watersheds. The agreement, which combines the organizational strengths and capabilities of each agency, recognizes the need to address water resource challenges on a watershed basis and will promote the development of innovative approaches to water resource and watershed management. Other objectives include facilitating sustainable economic development, ensuring communication among all stakeholders, and enhancing data exchange between the agencies.

For more information, go to:

http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/watersheds/partnership.html

2004-12-30T17:42:00.000-08:00

Watershed Management Partnership Agreement
http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/watersheds/partnership.html
On November 19, 2004, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed the Watershed Management Partnership Agreement to promote watershed health, economic sustainability and community vitality through effective management of the Nations watersheds. This partnership builds on existing EPA and USACE efforts and will employ innovative approaches to support watershed restoration, stewardship and management.

2004-10-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

US/EU eGovernment Collaboration
A transnational team of researchers has published a white paper on the findings and future goals of the U.S. and E.U. communities, whose representatives met last spring in Seattle.
http://digitalgovernment.org/library/library/pdf/nsf_eu_whitepaper_0904.pdf

2004-10-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

Nature and the City
Nature and the City: Making Environmental Policy in Toronto and Los Angeles
by Gene Desfor and Roger Keil
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/catalogs/fall04/pg27.htm
This book takes a new look at this application of "ecological modernization" to contemporary urban political-ecological struggles. Considering policy processes around land-use in urban watersheds and pollution of air and soil in two disparate North American "global cities," it criticizes the dominant belief in the power of markets and experts to regulate environments to everyone's benefit, arguing instead that civil political action by local constituencies can influence the establishment of beneficial policies. The book emphasizes `subaltern' environmental justice concerns as instrumental in shaping the policy process. Looking back to the 1990s—when ecological modernization began to emerge as a dominant approach to environmental policy and theory—Desfor and Keil examine four case studies: restoration of the Don River in Toronto, cleanup of contaminated soil in Toronto, regeneration of the Los Angeles River, and air pollution reduction in Los Angeles. In each case, they show that local constituencies can develop political strategies that create alternatives to ecological modernization.

2004-08-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation (DIGARCH)
Possible funding source for next year
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04592/nsf04592.htm
Program Solicitation
NSF 04-592
National Science Foundation
Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Division of Information and Intelligent Systems
Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.m. proposer's local time):
September 14, 2004

2004-08-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

The text of the California Performance Review has been released.
The website is http://cpr.ca.gov
This section speaks to the consolidation of the RWQCBoard and EPA
http://www.report.cpr.ca.gov/cprrpt/issrec/res/res06.htm

Two links to info of digitized hydro maps:
http://www.ca.nrcs.usda.gov/features/calwater/calnwbd.html
http://water.usgs.gov/GIS/huc.html
http://nationalatlas.gov/hucsm.html

2004-08-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

Wetlands Mitigation Banking: Mitigation banking has the potential to play a significant role in the Section 404 regulatory program by reducing uncertainty and delays, as well as improving the success of wetlands mitigation efforts. Land owners needing to "mitigate" or compensate for authorized impacts to wetlands associated with development activities may have the option of purchasing credits from an approved mitigation bank rather than restoring or creating wetlands on or near the development site.

Status
The EPA Administration supports mitigation banking and is currently develop ing interagency guidance for the establishment and use of mitigation banks. Approximately 100 mitigation banks are in operation or are proposed for construction in 34 States across the country, including the first private entrepreneurial banks. See: http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/facts/fact16.html

2004-08-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

Mitigation banking is defined in the Federal Guidance for the Establishment, Use and Operation of Mitigation Banks Federal Register: November 28, 1995 (Volume 60, Number 228) Pages 58605-58614 as:

Wetland restoration, creation, enhancement, and in exceptional circumstances, preservation undertaken expressly for the purpose of compensating for unavoidable wetland losses in advance of development actions, when such compensation cannot be achieved at the development site or would not be as environmentally beneficial. It typically involves the consolidation of small, fragmented wetland mitigation projects into one large contiguous site. Units of restored, created, enhanced or preserved wetlands are expressed as "credits" which may subsequently be withdrawn to offset "debits" incurred at a project development site.

For more info about mitigation banking, see:
http://www.mitigationbanking.org/projects.htm
Also check out the Rancho Jamul bank:
http://www.mitigationbanking.org/PDFs/CA-wildlandJAMUL.pdf
This comes up over and over in the mitigation sections of the 401s.-Richard