Invited speakers from UC Berkeley and Stanford Universities will talk about the HydroGrameen Technology (water project for the community by refilling depleted aquifers and converting watershed into water village) and how it addresses the global water crisis, with the end view of establishing a self-reliant, affordable and clean water resources for the community, as well as prevent further land subsidence.

Interested to speak or share your ideas at the event? Please email us with you topic at bengalbasin@gmail.com on or before 14 December 2017 to be included in the program.

Program

Welcome remarks by Brian Scott, Director of Berkeley Community Media
Presentation/Discussion

• Dawn Bravo, PhD (Biochemistry, Stanford University) David Seaborg (Evolutionary Biology & President, Rainforest Fund)
• Mamade Kadreebux (Author and Artist)
• Rash B. Ghosh, PhD (Ecology, Hydrology, Salford-Manchester University)

Other invited speakers

Q&A
Networking/Mixer

(Master of Ceremonies – Melanie Mentzel)

Event is free and refreshments will be served.

Organized by The International Institute of Bengal and Himalayan Basins (IIBHB) in collaboration with the Berkeley Community Media (BCM)

Questions or RSVP, please email bengalbasin@gmail.com  or call 510-575-5112

You can also register through Eventbrite – 8th Annual Townes and Tagore Seminar: HydroGrameen Technology (Water Project for the Community)

This year’s discussion will focus on the IIBHB’s “HydroGramin” model, the design of Dr. Rashbihari Ghosh, a Bangladeshi-American scientist, for a complex of villages built around a central reservoir on the principles of sustainable hydrological, architectural, and agricultural development. While serving communities economically and as a source of clean drinking water, irrigation, and aquaculture, HydroGramin projects will, in turn, be used to recharge or cleanse deep and shallow aquifers and will also prevent land subsidence, and address problems caused by sea-level rise. The seminar’s convener, Prof. Richard Saykally, a UCB authority on water chemistry, will address the overall advantage of the HydroGramin model over desalination and the place of both technologies in our planet’s water future. Other speakers include our institute’s advisor, Dr. Randy Scheckman, the 2013 Nobel Laureate in Medicine. We are greatly indebted to Professor Scheckman for his ongoing support of our institute and the insight brings to our development of solutions. Other speakers include Dr. Ghosh, Felicia Marcus, Chair of the California Water Control Board along with other scholars and scientists.

PROGRAM

10:00 Introductory Talks: 10 min

Richard Saykally(UCB Chemistry)
Rash B. Ghosh(IIBHB)-“Canopy Chemistry and Hydrogramin”
John Paulin(IIBHB)-“Charles Townes and Hydrogramin: Water that works for everybody”…10 min

10:30 Invited Lectures: 15 min

• Nir Krakauer (CCNY-Hydrogeology)-“Climate-adaptive research and technology transfer for rural Nepal”
• Inez Fung (UCB Earth and Planetary Science)-“Precipitation Variability and Trends”
• Robert Kostecki (LBNL)-“Forward osmosis water desalination via lower critical solution temperature ionic liquids/water phase transition”
• Charlie Kuffner (SkyH2O Inc) -“Condensing Relative Humidity in the air for Commercial Atmospheric Water Generation (AWG) Applications
• Tarek Zohdi (UCB Mechanical Eng)-“Due Diligence When Considering New Water Technologies: An Engineer’s Point of View”
• Khalid Mosalam (UCB Mechanical Eng)-
• Teresa Head Gordon (UCB Chemistry)-

12:00 Break

1:00 Invited Student Talks: 15 min

• Michelaina Johnson (UCB Environmental History) “Lessons from a River: Restoration on the Cosumnes River”
• Devansh Jalota (UCB CEE)-“Mumbai’s Urban Water Challenges and Possible solutions for its Slum communities.”
• Matthew DiTucci (UCB Chem)-“An Isolated Approach to the Solution: Using Aqueous Nanodroplets to Investigate Solvated Ions
• Deb McCaffery (UCB Chem)-“Ions at the Graphene-Water Interface”
• Tony Rizzuto (UCB Chem)-“Deep UV Spectra of Ions at the Water Surface”
• Royce Lam (UCB Chem)-“Carbon Dioxide-Water Interactions from X-ray Spectroscopy”
• Will Cole (UCB Chem)-“Terahertz Laser Spectroscopy of Water Clusters: Towards Improved Water dels”

The event is free and open to the public.

View the flyer

Large parts of the U.S. are in for a drought of epic proportions in the second half of this century, scientists warn in a new study that provides the highest degree of certainty yet on the impact of global warming on water supplies in the region.

The chances of a 35-year or longer “megadrought” striking the Southwest and central Great Plains by 2100 are above 80 percent if the world stays on its current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists from NASA, Columbia University, and Cornell University report in a study published Thursday in the new open-access journal Science Advances.

If countries reduce their emissions to current “middle of the road” targets, the chances of a megadrought hitting the Great Plains drop to between 60 and 70 percent. But they remain nearly 80 percent for the Southwest.

National Geographic – see link below
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150212-megadrought-southwest-water-climate-environment/

Wells are running dry or reservoirs are nearly empty in some communities. Others have long-running problems that predate the drought.

The communities range from the area covered by the tiny Lompico County Water District in Santa Cruz County to the cities of Healdsburg and Cloverdale in Sonoma County, the San Jose Mercury News (http://bit.ly/LmgFL2 ) reported Tuesday.

Most of the districts, which serve from 39 to 11,000 residents, have too few customers to collect enough revenue to pay for backup water supplies or repair failing equipment, the newspaper reported.

Huffington Post (this is highlighted/active link to the source of the article)

http://www.iibhb.com/pdf/2013_Townes_and_Tagore_Program.pdf

http://www.iibhb.com/pdf/2012_Townes_and_Tagore_Seminar.pdf

http://www.iibhb.com/pdf/Project-Narrative–US_EPA.pdf

http://www.iibhb.com/pdf/Rash_Ghosh–clean_water.pdf

http://www.iibhb.com/pdf/The_Ram_Mohan_Roy_Temple.pdf