Water Sustainability Program Distinguished Speaker Series (In conjunction with the Sally & Ralph Duchin Campus Lectureship Series of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies)

Time: Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. with outdoor refreshments from 4:30 - 5 p.m.

Lecture: Triumph or Tragedy?  A Brief History of Water Management in Israel

During Israel's brief sixty year history, its idiosyncratic water policies have evolved, and can boast several impressive accomplishments: agriculture yields have increased 20-fold while fresh water utilization has actually dropped.  Israel leads the world in recycling of sewage and produces desalinized water cheaper than any other country.  But there are growing signs that question the sustainability of present strategies.  This lecture will consider where Israel's water management has been, where it needs to go and what it means for dryland states like Arizona.

Speaker: Dr. Alon Tal, Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Jacob Blaustein Institutes of Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Dr. Tal has been described as Israel’s leading environmentalist.  His research interests have focused on water sciences, desertification, and its environmental impact on human activities and his career has been a balance between academia and public interest advocacy.  He is presently a visiting professor in the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University where he is completing a book on Israeli demographic policy. From 2010 until 2013 he was co-chairman of Israel’s green party - “the Green Movement”.  Dr. Tal was the founding director of Adam Teva V'din, the Israel Union for Environmental Defense from 1990-1997, a leading public interest law group and was chairman of Life and Environment, an umbrella group for eighty environmental organizations in Israel from 1998-2003.  He currently is a member of the international board of directors of the Jewish National Fund where he has served as chairman of the Committee for Land Development that oversees forestry and land reclamation as well as the Committee for Sustainable Development. In 1996, Dr. Tal founded the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, a graduate studies center in which Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian students join environmentalists from around the world in an advanced interdisciplinary research program. 

Location: UA Center for Creative Photography Auditorium (Map & parking info: http://www.creativephotography.org/visit)

Co-Sponsors: Water Sustainability Program (WSP), Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), Arizona Center for Judaic Studies,  Sally & Ralph Duchin Campus Lectureship Series of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, Center for Middle Easter Studies, Udall Center for Public Policy