Water Related Resilience

LARCH 297 | Fall 2021 | Monday-Wednesday-Friday (reading day) - 1:15-2:25 pm

Course Description:

The water you drink and bath in is a thread that ties people to communities, ecologies, and the physics of the planet. It is a medium through which heat moves in the atmosphere and the ocean and thus plays a significant role in the dynamics of our changing climate. Its characteristics, temperature, PH, salinity, and nutrient loads determine the viability of ecosystems and food systems. It is the stuff of flood, drought and other disasters impacting ecologies, societies, and economies. The prevalence of pollution, scarcity of clean water, and vulnerability to water related hazards often signal social and economic imbalances, racism, and other human failings.

This interdisciplinary seminar provides students a foundation in water related resilience. Water related resilience re-imagines the human relationship to water to foster the continued function of ecologies on which life and society depend, to ensure equitable access to clean water, and to ensure human systems, cultures, and economies can maintain their essential functions in the face of evolving water related hazards. Achieving this requires the collaboration of persons in all disciplines, from science, design, and engineering to business, communications, and arts.

This course combines aspects of physical and social science with ecology and design to provide students in all disciplines functional knowledge of water related resilience and skills that can be applied to their work and making a difference in our world. The cross-disciplinary knowledge and experience this course provides will enhance students’ ability to be effective interdisciplinary collaborators regardless of their disciplinary workspace, and to assist in making our world more water resilient. This course will supplement readings with online materials (videos, study guides) to maximize time for discussion in the classroom. One of the three course days will be dedicated as a reading day to allow for this work and for office hours.

Flyer Text:

The summer of 2021 has seen drought, flood, wildfire, crop failures and countless other water related calamities. Water related resilience re-imagines the human relationship to water to foster the continued function of ecologies on which life and society depend, to ensure equitable access to clean water, and to ensure human systems, cultures, and economies can maintain their essential functions in the face of evolving water related hazards. This interdisciplinary seminar will ground you in the physical and social science of water related resilience and give students in all disciplines the foundation to engage and apply their own disciplinary knowledge to build equitable, ecologically sound, and resilient futures.