July 27, 2017

Wow, this week has quickly passed by. Today is the second day of the DataJam and I've been impressed with the quality of projects you have selected. Keep up the quality of work.

Slides of today's instruction on the DataJam in PDF

For tomorrow we will meet back in the class room in edificio Fundadores room 303 for the competition.

July 25-26, 2017

It's been a busy week and we've all learned a lot about water, water security, climate change and our vulnerabilities. On July 25 we talked about urban and rural water security and the types of vulnerabilities found in each. It was interesting to compare different countries and how the percent of the population is urban varies across each region and continent.

Lecture slides from July 25 on the "human fingerprints" on water in PDF

July 26

We started off today with a discussion on climate change. Since most of you have addressed climate change in your previous classes, I won't spend a great deal of time on the science of climate change but give some bottom lines on what we will likely expect in the coming years.

Lecture slides from July 26 on Climate Change in PDF

Today is the first day of the #LaSalleAgua17 DataJam! 

So what is a DataJam? This DataJam is an event where you will be involved in a creative problem solving competition where each team agrees on a problem to address. Your team creates an innovative solution to the problem. At end of the DataJam, groups will present their solution to the class. In this DataJam we will focus on water and climate change problems. You will begin today and finish on Friday. Final presentations on Friday during class. It will be hard work but will rewarding in the end.

Information on the DataJam in PDF

July 24, 2017

Today we continued our discussion on human health impacts that could occur after extreme weather events. I will post some of the time-lapse imagery to our YouTube channel. The last part of class I gave a demonstration on the uses of a geographic information system by running QGIS with a few Colombian data layers that I grabbed from the internet.

Lecture slides are available on this PDF

July 21, 2017

Today we discussed more on the Community Profile exercise as part of a vulnerability assessment. The importance of using a geographic information system becomes apparent as you bring many data layers to help quantify vulnerabilities across your area. We also discussed concepts of the precautionary principle in decision making. The last part of the class we started a discussion on the human health vulnerabilities of our water system.

Lecture slides on part 2 of ocean monitoring as PDF

Lecture slides on the rest of the Community Profile are available as PDF

Lecture slides on part 1 of the human health hazards of water security are in PDF

July 19, 2017

Today we continued the analysis of the community profiles as part of a vulnerability assessment from extreme weather events. You all did great job in going through all of the steps and presenting your assessments. I added a few more slides to the community profile that I will discuss on Friday.

Today we also installed the rain gauge and time lapse camera on campus. We will check the rainfall amounts each day and download the camera memory card during class. I will upload the camera movies to our class YouTube channel so we can discuss it during class.

Lecture slides of vulnerability PDF

Lecture slides of instrumentation part 1 PDF

July 18, 2017

Today we discussed how natural events such as intense precipitation, flooding, drought, heat waves, extreme cold, high winds, tropical storms, land and mudslides can impact our areas. It was refreshing to see the rain today, although we were inside. Tomorrow we will find a place for the rain gauge that I brought.

A few key words and terms have been discussed so far in our class:
geographic information system (GIS)
groundwater
meteorology
surface water
sustainability
vulnerability

You all did a great job in your community profile groups today. On Wednesday, if you haven't finished the map, please do. If you haven't finished it, I will give you instructions during class on what to do next.

Today's lecture slides are available for download from this PDF.

P.S. Just for fun I mentioned how a haiku can be used to communicate awareness of a hazard. In the US, the Arizona Department of Transportation had a contest for people to come up with a haiku on the dangers of driving through a dust storm. They called it the #HaboobHaiku.

July 17, 2017

Welcome to Water Security in a Changing Climate!

In this course we will discuss how we may view water security in the face of changing climate and the role of peace in enhancing conditions and opportunities. We will cover climate change and climates found in Colombia and how ENSO has impacted water availability and quality, agriculture, and health. The class will focus on the stresses put on water in Colombia such urbanization and climate change. At the end of the course we will hold a three-day DataJam that will give you an opportunity to put into practice what you learned in the lectures.

Please bring with you paper and pen/pencil. We will have in class assignments that you need to hand in.

We went over a lot of material today but it was a pleasure meeting all of you. In our short time together in this class I hope to get to know you a little better.

We will be using this blog to have all of your assignments and news about the class. Please view it daily to keep up.

First assignment
You first assignment is to identify a past weather event that you have experienced and identify vulnerabilities based on your research. Pick a weather event that you can find information on when it occurred, what it affected, and who it affected. This document explains the project in some detail. We can discuss the project more during class. You are welcome to bring questions to class on Tuesday.
Your homework that is due on Friday is to complete part 1 of the project.

Remember to set up your Twitter account and start tweeting about our class starting Wednesday. This document details the requirements for using Twitter. The requirements are to include @nmclimate in your post and the hashtag #LaSalleAgua17. Use my twitter account to see examples of other people tweeting about the water, weather and the climate.

Please hand in all assignments in English. The Twitter assignment will also need to be in English.

Here is the first set of lecture slides from today: PDF of slides