The two weeks since our son's visit have been busy, with spurts of in-the-library productivity punctuated with trips for professional interviews and sightseeing.
Progress!
As of yesterday, I have completed scripts for 10 lectures (~6000 words each, without slides), that cover the first half of my planned course's 16 weeks. Since the second half of the course will be more project focused, these lectures represent the lionshare of my intended course prep. (I will prepare the slides, which is itself a labor of love, in the fall.) So far, I've prepared the following class sessions:
Water Management Overview and Topics Specific to Israel and the MENA region
Topics in Environmental Sociology
Water and Nation Building
Geography and Water Resources
Geography, Resources, and Spatial Systems
Supply Water Systems
Waste Water Systems
Water Manufacture
Water and Energy
Water and the Environment
Just to see them listed, I can see that's already a lot of ground to cover. What's left? Well, the best (and hardest) might be yet to come:
Water and Politics
Transboundary Water Conflict and Management
Urbanism, Planning, and Water Resources
"Water Sensitive" Design
I have guest lectures planned to cover "Water in Culture and Religion," "Water and Information," and "Water Governance, Consumption, and Conservation." I just hope the students will be able to sustain their interest over the course of the semester. If they don't, it won't be due to the topics themselves or their importance!
Talk!
One of the benefits of working at Tel Aviv University is proximity to the Porter School of the Environment, its spiffy new building, and their public programming concerning environmental issues.
On March 17th, the Porter School hosted a "double feature" seminar, with presentations from former NASA scientist Dr. Jonathan Trent and George Mason University's Dr. Jagadish Shukla. Dr. Trent introduced his circular-ecology "Omega Project," based on waste-consuming algae production, and argued for its implementation ... anywhere that will make the investment. Shukla prefaced his appeal for interdisciplinarity (including humanists) in climate science by a review of the scientific basis of climate change. It turns out that Shukla is a high-profile guy, subject to the attacks of climate-science deniers, and so was pleasantly surprised to present to a crowd that wasn't already out to get him. As a motivation for our studying the infrastructural aspects of our built environment, Shukla's presentation might be useful. In an email exchange afterwards, he expressed willingness to come to Morgan to speak with our students.
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I heard another talk presentation later in the week in a park in Kfar Saba. The webpage for the Center for Water Sensitive Cities in Israel (thanks Karin Onn for the link!) suggested to me a catchy phrase -- inspired, no doubt, by Carmon and Shamir's "Water Sensitive Planning" -- might be a good one under which to present design-side topics concerning water management. It's a really good, information-dense website, even if its principles are not necessarily "news" to water-sensitive designers in the US and elsewhere.
I reached out to the Center's director, Dr. Yaron Zinger, who invited me to join his presentation to Dr. Shula Goulden's Porter School class for a visit to one of the three in-the-ground biofilters active in Israel. Joining the presentation, too, were representatives from Ashdod's municipal government, who are eager to find ways to treat stormwater and meet increasingly stringent regulations. It was interesting to witness first-hand the dynamic of engineers and bureaucrats taking the measure of a "new thing," and weighing the plusses and minuses both technical and financial. Between the lines, one could see also the mental gears turning, as Zinger explained the need to transform public open space from passive to active participants in a "green" urban ecology. Paradigms shift slowly, but Israel's managerial class has typically been open (if not exactly first to adopt) to technological innovations in environmental management.
The strategic purpose of Zinger's biofilters is very different than that of what we see in Maryland. Stormwater management in the Land of Pleasant Living has a lot to do with improving the quality of run-off and, consequently, Maryland's surface water: streams, rivers, and of course the Chesapeake Bay. In the coastal areas of Israel, however, the challenge is ground water -- in particular, the Coastal Aquifer, from which Israel extracted water for many years until its quality decreased to dangerous levels. Zinger's pilot project biofilter actively treats the aquifer. During the rainy season, it takes (a small portion) of Kfar Saba's urban run-off and, after treatment, delivers water to the aquifer below. During the dry season, it pumps water from the aquifer, treats it, and returns the treated water back the aquifer, presumably contributing to its recharge.
Despite the small size of the pilot project, Zinger claims that the results are good. The project indicates, too, that aquifer recharge is better served by infiltration from a point above the aquifer itself, rather than direct injection. (This is welcome news for those concerned about cost and regulation.) Zinger is eager to demonstrate the efficacy of biofilter water treatment at a larger, urban scale -- integrated in the urban elements of a neighborhood, for instance, of of a whole city. It remains to be seen whether or not the representatives of Ashdod have been convinced...
I exchanged a few words with Dr. Zinger after the field trip, and he reached out to me a few days later to tell me about an initiative between Tel Aviv University and the City of Miami Beach, Florida. The American Friends of the university are soliciting ideas from students and affiliates for help with Miami's own stormwater and aquifer problems. Perhaps the biofilter application to groundwater recharge can help address Biscayne Aquifer's increasingly serious problems with seawater infiltration...
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While I was in Kfar Saba, I explored the system of greenways that are a prominent feature of the town's urban development. Other Israeli cities have included promenades and walkways separated from vehicular traffic, but Kfar Saba's appear to be far more extensive. Shlomit Dekel, one of the teachers at the Tichonet High School who invited me to meet with students last month, told me that her father was the City Engineer who helped plan this system.
What I didn't expect was the range of urban planning "fashions" all on display in Kfar Saba, all within a few minutes walk: traditional "mixed use" streets, modernist public-housing-style "towers in the park," 70's-style pedestrian-only pathways (and their Dorian Gray reality, adjacent surface parking), covered shopping malls, and sophisticated "deck" housing with commerce zoned far, far way.
Zinger's bioswale is on the outside edge of a "green" development, for which architects and planners had to conform to the usual cookbook of energy efficient building techniques and special waste disposal mechanisms. Yet, except for the easy walk to an adjacent "Green Mall," the development serves an entirely car-based culture, and affords none of the pedestrian access to commercial activities that one would expect. I heard evidence from Tel Aviv's planners that the lesson may have been learned by now, in 2019, but sprawl-like development (admittedly at much higher densities than what we see in the US) continues throughout Israeli. Despite Israel's ongoing investment in mass transportation, one has the sense that infrastructure is playing a desperate game of "catch up" with an ongoing building frenzy. Too bad that more of the money isn't on doing it smart.
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