News Archive
The 14th T3 Earth Forum(Transformation Cube Earth Forum)
Up coming
- ✽ Please register via Forms.
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Program
- 1:30~2:30pm Prof. Thomas Harter (Professor and Specialist in Cooperativ Extension, Department of Land, air and Water Resources, University of California DAVIS)
- Title “Legal Control of Groundwater Pumping That Impacts Stream Ecosystems: Integrated and Transdisciplinary Hydrologic Science at the Cutting Edge of California’s New Groundwater Law”
- Abstract The reduction and depletion of stream flow and lake levels due to groundwater pumping is an underappreciated impact of groundwater pumping with often devastating effects on ecosystems. California’s new groundwater law is one of few state and international water laws that explicitly attempt to protect “interconnected surface waters”. In this talk, I explore both, the scientific complexity of the groundwater-surface water-ecosystem connection and the complexity of the societal, legal, and administrative structures that have evolved around protecting groundwater-dependent ecosystems, using a case study from California. We have developed a novel integrated hydrologic modeling approach to provide decision-support to local, regional, and state regulatory agencies as they parties including environmental NGOs, tribal representatives, domestic well users, communities, and agricultural pumpers. Developing the decision-support tool has been a two-step process: development of a trusted baseline model capable of reproducing and explaining experienced hydrologic history, and development of future model scenarios to inform decision-making. I show how contributions of the community’s various actors, through their interactions with the model, affect the design of the model and how this community-engagement shapes planning and management design decisions. Clear, open, transparent, consistent, and educational communication with strong integrity is critically important to this process, between scientists and community/actors and between opposed factions of actors. A trusted hydrological model can disassemble some barriers to consensus building. But value-decisions remain as relevant to management design as scientifically based information.
- 2:30~3:00pm Q/A and Discussion
- ✽ FlyerDownload ✽ All completed forums: Go to Completed Forum list
The 13th T3 Earth Forum (Transformation Cube Earth Forum)
Completed
Program
- 4:00~4:40pm Prof. Anik Bhaduri (Director, Sustainable Water Future Programme, Future Earth)
- Title “Transforming Water Security Decisions: How Green–Grey Investment Pathways Shape Cognition, Behaviour, and Governance in Socio-Ecological Systems”
- Abstract Water security challenges are intensifying under climate change, land-use pressure, and rising human exposure, revealing the limits of traditional, infrastructure-centric solutions. This presentation argues that water security outcomes depend not only on what we invest in, but critically on how green and grey investments are sequenced over time and space. Using a dynamic socio-ecological systems (SES) perspective, the talk shows how investment pathways shape cognition, behaviour, and governance by influencing how risks are perceived, learned from, and acted upon. Evidence from the Upper São Francisco (Velhas) Basin demonstrates that front-loaded upstream green investments can reduce downstream risks, lower long-term reliance on grey infrastructure, and improve system-wide learning. The analysis reframes water systems as non-equilibrium, learning systems requiring adaptive, path-dependent decision-making rather than static project selection.
- 4:40–5:30pm Q&A and Discussion
The 12th T3 Earth Forum (Transformation Cube Earth Forum)
Completed
Program
- 10:00~10:40 Prof. Naoko Ellis (Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia) Prof. Derek Gladwin (Associate Professor, Language & Literacy Education, University of British Columbia)
- Title “Relational Approaches to Energy Transition and the Practice of Energy Literacy”
- Abstract The energy transition represents not merely a technical shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources, but also a profound sociocultural transformation that reconfigures values, identities, and collective worldviews. This talk advances a relational approach to energy transition through the framework of energy literacy, conceived as the integration of knowing, being, and doing in the pursuit of sustainable futures. Drawing on examples from the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada, this talk examines how sustainability emerges through relational and affective practices that reconfigure how energy is conceptualized and experienced, while also informing how it may be enacted across interconnected ecological and cultural systems.
- 10:40~12:00 Q/A and Discussion
The 11th T3 Earth Forum (Transformation Cube Earth Forum)
Completed
Program
- 1:30~2:15pm Dr. Oscar Hartman Davies (Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History, KTH Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment)
- Title “Anthropocene History and the governance of flows between ecological science, management, and activism”
- Description This presentation introduces ongoing research at the Centre for Anthropocene History at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. The presentation consists of two parts. First, it introduces the Centre and discusses key concerns of this emerging interdisciplinary field. In the second, it shares ongoing work exploring the Anthropocene through the lens of governance of flows and mobilities, including entanglements between wastewater infrastructures and river health in Britain, landscape connectivity models for conservation and land use planning, and the use of animals as “ecosystem sentinels” for sensing large-scale environmental changes.
- 2:15~2:45pm Q&A and Discussion
The 10th T3 Earth Forum (Transformation Cube Earth Forum)
Completed
Program
- 3:00~3:45pm Prof. HENS Kristien (Professor, University of Antwerp, Department of philosophy)
- Title “Attuning to the Abyss: Art–Science Collaborations for Non-Extractive Knowledge of the Deep Sea”
- 3:45~4:00pm Q&A
- Abstract As deep-sea mining accelerates, so too does the urgency to rethink how we know the ocean’s depths. This talk explores how art–philosophy–science collaboration can shift how scientists, ethicists, and policymakers approach the deep sea, and how cultivating multispecies attentiveness through art can catalyze cognitive and ethical transformations toward sustainable Earth-human futures.
- 4:00~4:45pm Prof. HUNKELER Daniel (Professor, University of Neuchâtel, Centre for Hydrogeology and Geothermics)
- Title “From Science to Practice: Overcoming Barriers in Sustainable Groundwater Management”
- 4:45~5:00pm Q&A
- Abstract Groundwater is increasingly vital for water supply and ecosystems amid climate change and biodiversity loss. This presentation explores ways to overcome barriers to sustainable groundwater management, including public awareness, education, and art-based communication, emphasizing multi-actor collaboration and integrating this often invisible resource into inter- and transdisciplinary dialogues.
- 5:00~5:15pm Q&A
The 9th T3 Earth Forum (Transformation Cube Earth Forum)
Completed