The trilemma of sustainable water, food, and energy security: How to reconcile human and environmental needs.

Abstract:  

The increasing water demand by human societies raises concerns on the extent to which it is possible to feed the world with the limited freshwater resources of the planet. The growing competition for water between human uses and environmental needs limits the development of suitable water security scenarios for a sustainable future. This seminar will show how humanity is placing unprecedented pressure on the global agricultural system and the water resources it relies on. A planetary water security model is developed to evaluate the tradeoff among water-related social values, including non-anthropocentric values for environmental flows, the water requirements of the human right to food, and the economic value of water to commercial enterprise. Through a suite of ecohydrological and socio-environmental analyses we evaluate the biophysical and social justice limits to the sustainable use of water resources, accounting for hydrologic constraints, climate conditions, environmental needs, livelihoods, and food security.

Speaker Bio: Paolo D’Odorico is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. D’Odorico’s research focuses on the role of hydrological processes in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Through the analysis of the soil water balance, he has highlighted important nonlinearities in the coupling between soil moisture dynamics and plant water stress, biogeochemical cycling, land-atmosphere interactions, plant community composition, and soil susceptibility to wind erosion. Using field observations and process-based models, D’Odorico’s research group is investigating new mechanisms of desertification and factors contributing to the resilience of the desert margins. He is also a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.