Event Date
Abstract
The world faces a multifaceted water crisis, overcoming which will be central for solving pressing sustainability and development challenges. While the urgency of this crisis is widely understood, I argue that a better representation of freshwater processes and freshwater systems in water resources engineering and water policy will be critical to fully comprehend and solve this global crisis.
For that, my talk will put a special emphasis on the world’s large rivers. Rivers are central to solving the global water crisis in many ways. Rivers are also increasingly overallocated and impacted by human development, with complex and unintended consequences for ecosystems and people.
Going forward, how can we solve these trade-offs and leverage freshwater resources from rivers in a sustainable manner? For that, I will firstly discuss new numerical approaches for strategic impact/benefit assessments of river infrastructure. Secondly, I will highlight interdisciplinary advances for quantifying future needs and alternatives for such infrastructure. Lastly, I will “look upstream” highlighting how an integrated perspective on river basins is critical for meeting conflicting needs for human development and conservation under the backdrop of climate change.
In conclusion, centering the water management agenda around natural freshwater and catchment processes will be critical for addressing emerging challenges in water-energy-food systems. This holds true for the Global South as well as for places like California, where rivers are a central part of the economy.
Bio
Dr. Rafael J. P. Schmitt is a Lead Scientist at Stanford’s Natural Capital project. Rafael’s research concerns interconnections between water infrastructure systems and their natural environments, and the relevance of such connections for managing the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus. Working across scales and geographic regions, Rafael leverages his background in hydrology, fluvial geomorphology, water resources engineering, and information technology to develop novel and interdisciplinary approaches to pressing environmental challenges. Beyond authoring more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, Rafael has worked intensively with multi-lateral organizations, governments, and non-profit organizations to make his research decision relevant.
Rafael holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Science, a M.Sc. in Environmental engineering (from ETH Zurich) and a Ph.D. in Information Technology (from Politecnico di Milano). Before his current role, Rafael was postdoc at UC Berkeley and Stanford University.