Last Friday evening, Hadley and Peter Arnold, co-directing founders of the Arid Lands Institute, a research, education, and outreach institute based in Los Angeles, California, returned to Albuquerque to deliver a lecture on campus.
Their lecture stressed the importance of enacting policies that would revolutionize the means by which society conducts hydrology. The Arnolds are considered among the most transformative figures in the field and are often regarded as leading proponents of hydrologic theoretics. A few hours before the start of their presentation, the Arnolds sat down for a brief interview with the Daily Lobo.
Daily Lobo: What is the ALI?
Peter Arnold: “(Well,) the (ALI) is based in Los Angeles, CA. [However,] it is not Los Angeles-centric. Its mission is to look at water, energy and the built-environment and how those three factors can be optimized for a more climate resilient future.”
How long have the two of you been developing the Institute?
“We started the work, in earnest, in 2008-09, so we are just in the spot where we are taking the next maturation of the work. We’re working inside of a Cleantech Incubator in (L.A.) so it’s kind of the next step up for us.”
How does your work relate to N.M. and the Southwest in general?
“California, and much of the (western United States) has been in multi-year drought, which shows no sign of abatement anytime soon, and that has actually helped raise the consciousness level, or the interest level, of many, many, many hundreds of thousands of people about the necessity and the need for water. People who have always worked the land and have a much more intimate (relationship) with resources already understood that water is very precious. It’s hard to see that in urban areas, in part because the ease at which we can just turn on the tap and get the water has been made very powerful, and it removes any steps of responsibility.
In what ways can it help water resources in these areas?
So, the policy point of this is that our cities are really designed to shed rainwater as fast and effectively as possible from urban surfaces, in part because we don’t want to deal with flooding. But we now see that shedded rainwater is going to be a vital resource going forward, in large part due to how climate change is changing the delivery of those water resources in the form of less snow, and more intense water, usually when it rains. So the point here is, we need to more closely couple the policy implications of surface-water requirements with water quality assessment. The reason why this is, is because most of our water policy has to do with water quality issues, and the quality issue has been separated from the supply issue, and what we’re trying to do through design is put them back together. That’s actually really important, that we’re not sacrificing water quality, but we are trying to maximize very scarce water supply requirements with growing demands.”
Johnny Vizcaino is a staff reporter at the Daily Lobo. Contact him at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @thedailyjohnnyv.
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