Friday, April, 24th, 2015 News
MIT Water Workshop: Reframing Complex Water Challenges
Learning from trans-disciplinary case studies to support new approaches to research and innovative practice
May 1-2, 2015
Increasingly, water resource related disciplines, including hydrology, civil engineering, ecology, architecture, public health, city planning, and political science, acknowledge that water problems are enmeshed in coupled human-natural networks where neither a purely physical nor social interpretation of the problem can solve the challenges we face.
Complex water problems cannot be broken down to characterize discipline-bounded component mechanisms that are then re-assembled. Who is at the table to conceptualize the problem has bearing on where we ultimately look for solutions. Globally, water practitioners are pioneering innovative trans-disciplinary approaches to support co-learning and redefine water challenges.
This workshop is an opportunity for the broader epistemic water community to work directly with these innovative water practitioners to guide new research agendas. Through this one-and-a-half day event, faculty, students, Boston-region water center directors, and global water practitioners will examine how lessons learned from innovative practices can transform how we look at and define water challenges.
May 1
5:30PM – 6:00PM Registration
6:00PM – 7:00PM Keynote
May 2
9:00 AM – 12:00PM Morning Panels
12:00PM – 5:00PM Afternoon Keynote and Panels
Featuring keynote speeches by Winston Yu (World Bank) and Yaneer Bar-Yam (New England Complex Systems Institute).
Where: MIT, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Building 4, room 163
Registration: waterworkshop.mit.edu. Registration is free, but please note that we have limited spaces and they are going fast.
Sponsors: MIT Water Club, Tufts Water Diplomacy Program, MIT Science Impact Collaborative, Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE), MIT Center for Integrated Technology Evaluation (CITE), MIT Department of Urban Studies, International Development Group (DUSP-IDG), MIT Office of Sustainability.