Environmental Leadership Program

Tapping Into Solutions: The Future of Water

Tuesday September 28 - Wednesday Septebmer 29, 2010

We're Bringing the Conference to You

It's a Virtual Conference - The Greenest Conference You'll Attend all Year

Abstract    •    Agenda    •    Registration   •    Speaker Bios

Tapping into Solutions: Leading Water’s Future is an online conference bringing together a diverse group of leaders from industry, government, not-for-profit organizations (Foundations and Non-Government Organizations), and academia to explore water’s complex role in society. Each sector seeks solutions, often independently, to improve water quality and ensure water availability for competing uses.  This conference aims to create a dialog between leaders in these sectors and explore their future technical and leadership needs.   Please join us as we bring together diverse perspectives to explore and debate these complex water issues, identify the leadership needed to manage the resource, and offer a framework to illuminate potential solutions.

New thinking, new leaders, and innovation will be critical to reducing conflict and ensuring the availability of safe and adequate water supplies while creating new economic opportunities fostering growth in green jobs.  Tapping into Solutions will engage participants and panelists from each sector in discussions related to water and climate change, sustainable infrastructure, the nexus between water and energy, public health, environmental justice and other topics focused on:

• Quality -- In many areas of the United States and the world, water quality has improved dramatically over the past decades resulting from regulation of point-source pollution, but significant challenges remain to maintain drinking water quality and protect and enhance clean water sources from non-point sources. 

• Quantity -- Local communities, States, and regions, face many challenges as they attempt to balance water needs for multiple and often competing uses.  Since watershed boundaries rarely mimic political boundaries, trans-boundary water resource management is becoming an increasingly important diplomatic aspect of dealing with water issues.

• Access -- Our society grapples with the question of who owns the water and who is entitled to it and at what cost.  Aligning needs with access and protecting critical ecosystems requires exploration of both the ethical and legal framework associated with access to water.