Position Title: Irrigation Water Management Specialist
Position:
This position request is for a Specialist with a strong background in irrigation water management. Expertise would include knowledge of soil–plant–water relations, irrigation systems, irrigation water management, and soil salinity management. The positionwould require an educational background inirrigation engineering or plant sciences (permanent or annual crops). The Specialist would have statewide responsibility and since water issues impact every commodity and locale, the Specialist would be a potential resource for nearly all the ANRAdvisors and Specialists.
Justification:
The UC-ANR Strategic Vision 2025 laid out a strategy to provide Healthy Food Systems, Healthy Environments, Healthy Communities, and Healthy Californians that are all impacted by the safety, quality, use of, and quantity of water in the State. Water issues have been a longstanding debate within California and this current drought has brought these issues to the forefront of Californians through such things as higher food prices and water restrictions impacting both agriculture and communities statewide. Almost all of the Initiatives outlined in the Strategic Vision are impacted by drought, water availability, water use efficiency, salinity, and numerous environmental impacts of irrigation practices. The ability of Californians to share and use water in the future will be driven by research, extension and education. With the recent retirement of four Irrigation andWater Management Specialists, ANR has lost much of its expertise in water management. A new Specialist was hired in 2012–13 (LAWR- UCDavis), but additional water-related expertise to support ANR’s Strategic Vision is critical.
Extension:
There is a great demand for extension activities by an Irrigation Water Management Specialist since water impacts both agricultural commodities and communities. Extension activities include meeting presentations on irrigation water management topics and development of educational outreach material (both written and electronic) for use by a wide range of audiences. The Specialist will develop some of the research material on which the extension information is based, but other information will be based on research results from other scientists that must be extended to users. The Specialist will need to be able to translate complicated scientific results into understandable and useful information for diverse clientele.
Research:
There are many opportunities for water-related research in areas such as irrigation system management, irrigation water management, plant-water-relations, and salinity. It is expected that the Specialist’s research will primarily be applied research, aimed at understanding and solving the wide range of problems facing California water users. It is likely that the Irrigation Water Management Specialist will often work in concert with both annual crop and permanent crop Advisors and Specialists.
ANR Network:
Water-related issues cross over into almost all areas of agriculture, natural resources, and even pest management. Because of this, an Irrigation Water Management Specialist could well end up working on a wide range of projects and interacting with a wide array of fellow ANR scientists. This would include Advisors and Specialists across ANR (including the new Specialist to be housed at UC Merced) that work on agricultural, environmental horticulture and urban landscape water use. An individual who accepts such a challenge would become a valuable resource for ANR and California.
Network External to ANR:
There will be ample opportunity, if not overwhelming demand, for external networking by an Irrigation Water Management Specialist due to the great demand by State and public agencies, along with private individuals and organizations, for water-related information and expertise.
Support:
There are numerous potential funding support sources for this Specialist.State agencies, such as DWR, CDFA, CA EPA, and others provide support for water-related research and outreach activities. Federal agencies including USDA, USGS, US EPA and others would also be potential funding sources. In addition, most of the commodity boards are well aware of the importance of water-related research for their crop production systems and will often support research. This position is proposed to be located at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center (KARE), making the position strategically sited and supported by ANR REC facilities at Kearney, Westside, and Lindcove.
Location:
This Specialist position, with Statewide responsibility, would be located at the KARE Center. This places the position in the center of some of the most critically water-impacted locations in the State. In addition, KARE also places the Specialist in the middle of some of the State’s most nitrate-impacted areas. Since nitrate problems are almost always irrigation related, the Irrigation Water Management Specialist would be expected to be actively involved in the State’s nitrate issues.
Developed and proposed by:
This Specialist position was developed in response to discussions at the 2013-2014 Water Program Team meeting. There was a consensus at that meeting that a new Specialist hire was very important in light of recent Water Specialist retirements. While there was strong support for the position, there was not unanimity on its location, with both Davis and KARE receiving support.
The proposal wasprepared and submitted by Larry Schwankl, Water Program Team Leader, and Doug Parker, Water Initiative Leader,in consultation with Jeff Dahlberg, Director of the KARE Center.