The Arava Valley is a sparsely populated region in southern Israel. Its hyper-arid climate produces less than one inch of rain a year and its temperatures reach 115° to 120° f in the summer.
Brown Bag Seminar Series
Bring your lunch and join us for a range of presentations on water-related topics of interest.
Access to the WRRC’s Brown Bag series now routinely includes offsite listeners through live webcasts via Goto-Webinar and in-house video coverage.
The slide presentations of most seminars are also available for viewing on the website.
Looking Ahead
Feb. 20 - Mark Brusseau
March 14 - Crystal Tulley-Cordova
April 24 - Tanya Quist
Previous Brown Bag Seminars
July 18, 2018
Brown Bag
Special Seminar - Food, Water, and Energy in the Arava Valley: Turning Disadvantage to Advantage in the Hyper-arid climate of the Region
June 15, 2018
Brown Bag
Special Seminar - Diversification of South Africa’s Water Supplies Under Conditions of Drought
Certain parts of South Africa are experiencing drought and the country’s traditional water supplies are under stress. There is a need to unlock more water resources and drive efficiency in the use of existing supplies to ensure water security.
May 21, 2018
Brown Bag
Brown Bag Seminars - Policy Principles for the Red-Dead Conduit and Regional Solutions
Professor Uri Shani will address how active agreements between neighboring jurisdictions can lead to water solutions rather than conflicts. Like the Southwestern United States, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority are experiencing increased water demands due to population growth and decreased supplies due to several factors, including changing climate.
April 26, 2018
Brown Bag
New Techniques for Mapping planted versus fallowed croplands using MODIS data
An important metric to monitor for optimizing water use in agricultural areas is the amount of cropland left fallowed, or unplanted. Fallowed croplands are difficult to model because they have many expressions; for example, they can be managed and remain free of vegetation or be abandoned and become weedy if the climate for that season permits.
April 25, 2018
Brown Bag
WRRC Brown Bag - Navigating Water Policy in Uncertain Times: New vs. Old Paradigms
What does water security mean in the 21st century and how do we reconfigure water policy for a more sustainable future? Although drought and water scarcity have driven conflict throughout history, there are increasing efforts across the U.S. to bring a more collaborative and systems-based approach to water governance. This talk examines the current water policy landscape and the ways in which a clash of paradigms is playing out between the legacy systems of the past and the new paradigm solutions of the future.
April 17, 2018
Brown Bag
WRRC Brown Bag - Advances in Forecasting Summer Monsoon Precipitation, Simulation of Convective Storm Processes
In his presentation, Dr. Chris Castro will describe research on the changing occurrence and intensity of monsoon rains. This research focuses on the simulation of severe weather events caused by mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), which account for much of monsoon rainfall in the central and southwestern portions of Arizona, downwind of the Mogollon Rim. Over the past 60 years, there have tended to be a fewer strong, organized MCS-type thunderstorms during the monsoon; however, when they do occur, their associated precipitation tends to be more intense.
April 12, 2018
Brown Bag
California Water: 2018 and Beyond
For a bird’s eye view of California’s movement toward integrated water management, join us for a special seminar by Felicia Marcus, Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board for California.
April 06, 2018
Brown Bag
Rooted: public values and uses for Arizona streams and springs
Join us at the Sky Island Alliance office, 406 S 4th Avenue in Tucson, for this thought-provoking presentation. What does water mean to you?
Is water really life, as reflected in public values and principles? Fresh water in an increasingly arid region like ours is important, but seeing or having access to surface water has many different meanings and uses to different people. This presentation will explore some of those meanings using local examples.
March 19, 2018
Brown Bag
WRRC Brown Bag - WATER CASA at 20: Lessons Learned, Unlearned, or Relearned
As Water CASA reaches a milestone -- 20-years of water conservation advocacy, Val Little allows herself a look back and a look forward, through the lens of Water CASA's accomplishments, at some lessons learned from its efforts. Much has changed in the past 20 years in the field of water conservation and in overall water management as well. A candid look at some of these changes can inform decisions going forward. "If I have learned one thing over the past 20 years it is that water management is only going to get more complicated and costly in the future.