With only 1 percent of the world’s water readily accessible for human use, the challenge of conserving water is an ongoing effort.
This issue was the subject of the Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series, which took place Thursday afternoon in the Pointe Conference Center at the Walter Pyramid. The event featured a panel of three experts on the subject of water conservation and renewal.
This is the second event in the speaker series, which convenes semiannually to bring students, faculty, alumni, community members and experts together to collaborate on an issue, according to Forouzan Golshani, the dean of the College of Engineering.
The panel included Kip Lipper, who has drafted legislation on a broad array of environmental policies, Scott Taylor, who is the chair of the California Stormwater Quality Association, and Stephen Arakawa, who has more than 30 years of experience working in the water field as a civil engineer.
The three spoke on water quality, quantity and utilization. Their lectures focused not only on the technological and environmental issues concerning water conservation, but also the political challenges surrounding the issue.
“Science is about the discovery of phenomenon, good or bad, and engineering is about creating new technologies for addressing those phenomenons,” Golshani said.
About 150 guests, including students, alumni, faculty and professionals showed up to take part in the forum, which offered a question and answer session at the end of the series for guests a unique chance to talk to the experts directly.
“It was very informative,” senior engineering major Faisal Baharie said. “The most interesting part for me was the long-term approach to the problem of water shortage. It is encouraging to know that things are happening to help solve that problem.”
According to Baharie, engineers play a large role in helping to accomplish some of these environmental goals.
As well as discussing the technological and political issues surrounding water conservation, the panelists mentioned that there are behavior issues. Things like overwatering and water theft are simple behavior issues that, when changed, can have a positive impact on water conservation.
Baharie said, “We as engineers can get involved in technologies; we need to make technologies that are more efficient by reducing cost.”
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