The True Cost of Water

Speakers

Gregory Characklis, PhD

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Greg Characklis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His primary research interests involve integrated planning of water supply and treatment strategies through the consideration of both engineering and economic criteria. He also serves as an Associate Editor with the journal Water Resources Research and currently chairs a committee sponsored by the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors entitled, “Integrating Economic and Financial Principles into Environmental Engineering Research and Education.” Prior to joining UNC, Dr. Characklis served as Director of Resource Development and Management at Azurix Corp., where his responsibilities centered around assessing the technical and financial merits of water-related investments. Before entering the private sector, he spent two years in Washington, D.C. as a fellow with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) where he co-authored a study on industrial environmental performance metrics and conducted work related to market-based reform of environmental policy. Dr. Characklis holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Environmental Science and Engineering from Rice University and a B.S. from Johns Hopkins University.

Michael Hanemann, PhD

University of California, Berkeley

Michael Hanemann is a Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics and the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include the environmental economics and policy, water, and climate change. He is recognized as one of the leading experts on nonmarket valuation and on the economics of water. He served as the California State Water Resources Control Board’s economics staff from 1986 to 1990 (including the first three years of the Bay-Delta Hearings) and as its economic consultant in 1992-1993 for its Mono Lake Decision. He co-edited the standard textbook on Urban Water Management (McGraw Hill, 1998) and is co-author of the recent chapter on “Water and Sanitation,” in Bjorn Lomborg (ed.) Global Crises, Global Solutions: Costs and Benefits Second Edition, Cambridge University Press (2009).

Professor Hanemann directed the California Climate Change Center at UC Berkeley, which was established in 2003 to analyze policy issues relating to impacts of climate change on California, including those on water, agriculture; energy, human health, coastal resources and natural ecosystems, and economic policies for reducing carbon emissions in California. He co-directed the 2006 Climate Change Scenarios Project for the state of California and served on the steering committee for the 2009 Climate Change Scenarios Project. He is faculty co-Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Institute at UC Berkeley Law School.

Upmanu Lall, PhD

Columbia Water Center

*Additional speaker biographies coming soon.