Morgan State University’s fall semester is officially over. Spring 2019 Sabbatical: All Systems Go!
I intend that this blog will provide a useful account of both my research and experiences in the US and Israel during my time away from my desk at Morgan State University. What’s behind it all is my interest in the “manufacture” of water as a partial solution to solving chronic problems with water supply.
Current trends in population growth, climate change, and resource depletion have precipitated crises, infrastructural and political, in countries all around the world. Among the most urgent is the supply of water. Even more than energy, water holds the key to long term environmental sustainability, strategic political relationships between nations, and even civil society within individual countries. Israel, among so many countries big and small, is a perfect microcosm for the study of these issues.
Over the last decade, Israel’s technical advances in “megascale desalination” have proved to a skeptical world that water scarcity can be mitigated. Combined with other water management solutions, desalination has increased short-term water availability, stabilized loss of traditional water sources, and suggested new development in formerly poorly-supplied areas. Still in its infancy, desalination technology appears today to be a cornerstone of Israel’s future national water management policy. Nevertheless, desalination’s impact upon Israel’s environment, including urban development and architecture, has yet to be studied systematically. Other questions remain concerning desalination’s environmental impact, as well as the feasibility of its use of renewable energy sources.
The goal of my upcoming work is a new course at Morgan State University, the focus of which will be Israel’s progress in these fields (desalination, water treatment, irrigation, and regional water management) and its situation within the context of Israeli planning, design, and development practices. Doing so will offer students at Morgan a case study for application to their own work as future professionals in diverse, infrastructure-related fields. The compact size of Israel’s national infrastructure is especially conducive towards understanding complex technical issues; furthermore, the socio-political issues surrounding Israel’s development should prove of great interest to Morgan’s students.
Coming up next: 002... A Plan of Action
Comments