Events

DeFord Lecture | Thomas Harter

Regulating Groundwater Pumping That Impacts Stream Ecosystems: Integrated and Transdisciplinary Hydrologic Science at the Cutting Edge of California’s New Groundwater Law by Thomas Harter, professor at University of California Davis

Abstract: The reduction and depletion of stream flow and lake levels due to groundwater pumping is an underappreciated impact of groundwater pumping with often devastating effects on ecosystems. California’s new groundwater law is one of few state and international water laws that explicitly attempt to protect “interconnected surface waters”. In this talk, I explore both, the scientific complexity of the groundwater-surface water-ecosystem connection and the complexity of the societal, legal, and administrative structures that have evolved around protecting groundwater-dependent ecosystems, using a case study from California. We have developed a novel integrated hydrologic modeling approach to provide decision-support to local, regional, and state regulatory agencies as they develop limits and management actions in negotiation with interested parties including environmental NGOs, tribal representatives, domestic well users, communities, and agricultural pumpers. Developing the decision-support tool has been a two-step process: development of a trusted baseline model capable of reproducing and explaining experienced hydrologic history, and development of future model scenarios to inform decision-making. I show how contributions of the community’s various actors, through their interactions with the model, affect the design of the model and how this community-engagement shapes planning and management design decisions. Clear, open, transparent, consistent, and educational communication with strong integrity is critically important to this process, between scientists and community/actors and between opposed factions of actors. A trusted hydrological model can disassemble some barriers to consensus building. But value-decisions remain as relevant to management design as scientifically based information.

UTIG Seminar Series: James Thompson, BEG

Speaker: James Thompson, Research Assistant Professor, Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin

Host: Danielle Touma

Title: High-Resolution Infrared Remote Sensing of Geohazards from Volcanoes to Wildfires

Abstract: How can recent improvements in the spatial and spectral resolutions of infrared remote sensing datasets enhance our ability to observe and analyze geological hazards (volcanoes and wildfires)? Will a more accurate quantification of thermodynamic processes across scales (mm to km) improve our interpretations of pre-, syn-, and post-hazard influences and feedbacks? Over the last few decades, resolution improvements of infrared remote sensing data have enabled observations at smaller scales previously unattainable, providing the detail necessary to advance hazard models and surface process interpretations (e.g., lava flow propagation dynamics and wildfire front convective dynamics). These improvements lead to a better understanding of hazard feedbacks and risk assessments for both populations and ecosystems. For our volcanic work, we show how new ground and airborne (both Crewed and Uncrewed Aerial Systems) multispectral thermal infrared instruments are used to observe subtle variations in heat flux and crustal development in lava flows, which were later used to improve runout distance models and more accurately predict risks to local populations. These systems are also deployed to wildfires to characterize the dynamics of fire fronts to increase understanding of heat flux, which can significantly influence spreading rates and the overall restoration of the landscape. Further, data from infrared instruments are used to improve estimations of gas fluxes from both volcanoes and wildfires, with implications for localized microclimate variability and health impacts on populations. Finally, these high-resolution observations are both (1) scaled to satellite observations to provide more wholistic interpretations of the hazards and (2) compared with other observations (e.g., soil physics, meteorology, flora characteristics, morphology) to identify positive and negative feedbacks within the terrestrial processes. The results provide a discernable increase in accuracy of thermodynamic models and insights into thermal and gas fluxes influences on landscape conditions.

Bureau of Economic Geology Seminar Series

Microstructural analysis of sedimentary and volcanic rocks

presented In Person by

Dr. Robert Reed
Research Scientist Associate V, BEG

UTIG Seminar Series: Student AGU Practice Talks

Each year, the week before AGU’s Fall Meeting, we invite UTIG student researchers to practice their AGU talks. Each presenter will be given 11 minutes, as per AGU’s oral presentation for 2024, followed by a few minutes for Q&A and feedback.

The details of this year’s speakers are currently underway. Come back to this page for new updates.

Bureau of Economic Geology Seminar Series

Environmental and aqueous geochemistry; Critical mineral

presented In Person by

Dr. Daniel Alessi
Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Jackson School of Geosciences
Getty Oil Company Centennial Chair in Geological Sciences (Holder)