June 15-17 Conference Program

Program Agenda

A detailed program is available here.

Conference speakers will be featured in plenary sessions and in concurrent sessions. Speaker/presenter instructions follow; session chair instruction below.

Speaker and Presenter Instructions

Poster Presenters: We can accomodate most poster formats, but our recommended poster size is 3 ft (90 cm) tall and up to 4 ft (120 cm) wide. You may choose your own size - our posterboards are 4 ft (120 cm) wide and 6 ft (180 cm) tall and your assigned space will be two boards that form a corner, in other words, they stand side-by-side at a 90 degree angle. I recommend that posters not be taller than 4 ft (120 cm) as the posterboards will stand on the floor.

Speaker Presenters: Your presentation should be no longer than 18 minutes (23 minutes for plenary session speakers) to allow for discussion and changing speakers. Please check the latest program update here for your speaking time.

Powerpoint Presentation Submission: Submit your Powerpoint file by Thursday, June 10 at this website: https://ucce.ucdavis.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=4931
After this deadline, please bring your presentation on a USB-stick to the conference registration desk the day before your presentation. Your file name must begin with your last name for identification. Jean Nordmann will be available for loading of the Powerpoint presentations.in Room Regency B, from 5pm - 6pm every night from Sunday to Wednesday. Her cell phone number is (916) 213-4065.

Reminder on Conference Audience and Closing Slide: In preparing your presentation, keep in mind that our audience and many of our speakers are not from an academic background, represent very diverse expertise, and include a large stakeholder contingent: ag representatives, ag consultants, groundwater consultants, water district folks, local/state/national agency folks. Also keep in mind that the audience may not be familiar with the particular geographic region, hydrographic features, or legal framework of the region that you represent.

The Program Council asks that, at the end of your presentation, you present a slide that identifies: A) - if you are giving a technical/science talk - the key consequences that follow from your work for policy/policy makers/decision makers B) - if you are giving a policy talk - the key research or technical progress/breakthrough/work that would be needed to overcome current policy/decision making challenges.

One of our conference goals is to identify key challenges (across the science - policy spectrum) to the sustainability of groundwater in agriculture and to identify opportunities to address these.

Journal Special Issue: Interested authors and co-authors for a special journal issue are invited to meet immediately following the conference final session on Thursday, June 17, at 6:30 - 8:30pm. We have applied for a special issue to Water Resources Research. Other plans can be discussed as well. Please plan accordingly!

Weather Conditions: San Francisco is famous for its cold, foggy, windy summers, so be prepared! While the weather maybe sunny and very hot a few miles inland or midday at conference venue, coastal fog and wind often makes for breezy mornings and evenings. Temperatures in the fog will be around 10-15 C (50-60 F), while the thermometer may quickly rise to over 20 C (70 F) when the sun comes out. We are much looking forward to see you there. Don't forget to register, make hotel reservations, and sign up for pre-conference workshops and post-conference water tour, if you haven't already done so (see left column).

Session Chair Instructions

Session chairs have been assigned to individual sessions (see conference program). Most sessions feature four speakers and last 100 minutes (25 minutes per speaker, including speaker setup & introduction, talk, and discussion). The program lists specific times for each speakers. Here are some guidelines for the session chairs:

1. Before the conference, familiarize yourself with the program, the session you are chairing, and the names & affiliations of the speakers in your session. Session chairs received a complete abstract volume via email that lists the title, speakers, and speaker affiliation at the top of their respective abstract.

2. Before your session, familiarize yourself with the laptop, make sure all the presentations are there and how to bring them up for each of your speakers. Be sure you know how to work the timer.

3. Start your session on time and keep it on time. This will be your most important task. Staying on schedule will be important to allow the audience to move between tracks through each session.

4. At the beginning of your session, ask the audience to please turn off cell-phones.

5. Introduce each speaker - name, affiliation, and brief title description is all that is needed, but you are free to do this in your own style.

6. Timers/clocks will be available. Speakers have 18 minutes for their presentation and 5 minutes for discussion. Your role will be to facilitate the discussion. Allow 2 minutes for setting up your next speaker.

7. Some ideas for facilitating the discussion: on scientific presentations, tease out the policy implications; on policy/management presentations, tease out the science that is lacking, what are the challenges ahead, where are solutions applicable?

Thank you for your efforts to make this a successful conference!

Conference 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

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