June 15-17 Conference Program

Program Agenda in Detail

A detailed DRAFT program is available here. The program is subject to change.

Conference speakers will be featured in general assemblies and also concurrent sessions that include the following issues and topics:

Socio-Economic Aspects of Agricultural Groundwater

• Agricultural groundwater and livelihoods: socioeconomics, policy issues, and adaptation
• Environmental justice and human health related to groundwater use in rural areas
• Groundwater's role in global food production

Climate, Energy, and Agricultural Groundwater

• Groundwater and climate change, including land use issues, groundwater recharge, and farming security
• Groundwater and energy, including biofuels, energy efficiency, carbon footprint of agriculture, and the role of energy subsidies

Agricultural Groundwater Quality and Contamination

• Agricultural groundwater: Regulatory controls, compliance, and monitoring (groundwater quantity and quality)
• Drinking water source water protection (groundwater) in agricultural regions – policies, management, and economics at the urban-agricultural fringe
• Groundwater salinity, including intrusion, drainage issues, and secondary salinization
• Impacts, monitoring, regulation, best management practices (BMPs), policy, economics regarding specific agricultural contaminants:
• Nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus)
• Pesticides
• Pharmaceuticals in animal farming
• Pathogens and food safety
• Farm petroleum-product management and groundwater contamination
• Occurrence, management, and treatment of natural contaminants in agricultural groundwater

Conjunctive Use, Agricultural Water Use, and Groundwater Management, Policy, and Regulation

• Conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water
• Irrigation water delivery and use efficiency: groundwater impacts, sustainability of irrigated agriculture, soil salinization due to increased water use efficiency, and conservation
• Groundwater management approaches, including community/collective approaches, instrumental approaches (laws, regulations, prices), demand management, and indirect approaches (energy policy, agricultural policies, adaptation)
• Management of the groundwater-agriculture nexus around the globe
• Groundwater recharge, including managed aquifer recharge (MAR), aquifer replenishment in crop production areas, increased recharge under land conversion to crop land, policies for aquifer recharge
• Policies related to economics of shifting agricultural management to control groundwater depletion/contamination, etc.
• Source water protection (groundwater) in agricultural regions, including policies, management, and economics
• Regulatory compliance related to nonpoint source impacts to groundwater, ambient groundwater monitoring for groundwater protection, including vadose zone monitoring, nutrient balance monitoring, and groundwater monitoring
• Modeling and assessment tools for evaluating agricultural groundwater quality and quantity trends and forecasting future conditions

Groundwater at the Agriculture-Urban Interface

• Groundwater use, management, and quality at the agriculture-urban interface, including agricultural legacy contamination
• Reuse of wastewater and biosolids in agriculture, including water quality impacts, economic incentives, and sustainable management
• Groundwater quality and management issues in forestry

Groundwater Linkages to Surface Water and Estuaries

• Surface water/groundwater interactions: impacts to and from agriculture, farm/groundwater/stream ecology linkage
• Agricultural groundwater and estuary ecosystems