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USGS Student Internship Opportunity: Hydrologic Model Evaluation Summer Session

The USGS is seeking summer interns to evaluate hydrologic cycle models and observational data across the United States. A prototype tool has been developed that allows exploration of observations and model results at several spatial and temporal scales. During the summer, a team of students will engage in rigorous application of this tool to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing models of the hydrologic cycle. Students will also have the opportunity to improve the tool and add functionality. Through frequent interactions with developers of hydrologic models within USGS, interns will be challenged to think critically about the representation of hydrologic processes used in models and to consider alternative strategies towards model development and evaluation. Students will be encouraged to think of their work as culminating in a presentation or scientific publication highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of hydrologic process representation. This unique summer session will be held at the USGS offices in the Denver Federal Center.
Applications through USAJobs are due April 10.
https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/495004600
Please contact either of the project leads, William Farmer (wfarmer@usgs.gov, 303-236-4981) or Jessica Driscoll (jdriscoll@usgs.gov, 303-236-4979), with any questions.

Catherine L. Kling Seminar: “Improving Water Quality: Are Economics and the Environment Always at Odds?”

April 12, 4:00-5:30pm in University of Idaho Commons Summit Room
Catherine L. Kling, Charles F. Curtis Distinguished Professor of Economics, President’s Chair of Environmental Economics and Director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University.
In this presentation, what is known about the current state of water quality in the United States, with a particular focus on agricultural sources, is outlined. With this backdrop, a range of policy and private market approaches to addressing agricultural water pollution problems will be discussed including the possible role of certification programs, water quality markets and trading, voluntary adoption of conservation practices, level of federal and state financial support, presence of state level regulations and the role of conservation compliance in the current and proposed Farm Bill.
Catherine L. Kling is the Charles F. Curtis Distinguished Professor of Economics, President’s Chair of Environmental Economics and Director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015 and leads an interdisciplinary research group developing integrated assessment models related to agricultural land use, water quality and ecosystem service valuation.

Brian Chaffin Seminar: “Resilience, Governance, and food-energy-water policy in the Klamath River Basin, USA”

April 12, 10:30am in PACCAR 202
Brian Chaffin, Assistant Professor of Water Policy and Governance in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation at the University of Montana.
Abstract: The Klamath River Basin straddles northern California and southern Oregon and has been the locus of a century-long struggle for community stability and ecosystem function in a system of over-allocated water resources. Along the Klamath River, multiple hydroelectric dams and extensive irrigation infrastructure have created economic and community dependence on irrigated agriculture as well as severely reduced aquatic habitat for the multiple endangered and threatened species in the basin. In the past several decades, however, the communities of the Klamath Basin have worked together in an effort to transform water management to promote greater resilience of both human populations and aquatic species to ongoing disturbances such as drought, and to comply with competing social, cultural, and political demands on water. In this seminar, Brian Chaffin will provide a brief overview of the contemporary applications of resilience as a framing concept for research on coupled, social-ecological systems. Specifically, Brian will discuss how certain aspects of “resilience thinking” have inspired new avenues for both developing and interrogating governance of broader human-environmental systems as well as management regimes for specific landscapes and resources such as those in the Klamath Basin. Brian will present evidence from his own social science research on governance transitions at the food-energy-water nexus, particularly from a case study of contemporary conflict and cooperation in the Klamath River Basin. Brian is an Assistant Professor of Water Policy and Governance in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation at the University of Montana and a co-PI on an NSF Research Traineeship Program focused on innovations at the food-energy-water nexus.