Water Law and Policy for the Twenty-First Century

• Semester: Spring 2024
• Course ID: 391F
• Credit Hours: 3
• Unique: 28490

Description

     Chaotic and upending droughts, floods, and hurricanes of historic proportions; groundwater depletions and surface water losses; algal blooms and other toxic drinking water threats; dam and other infrastructural failures; and an accelerating cascade of other devastating events have cast a glaring spotlight on the fragmented structure of state-based, region-based, and federal water rules and regulations and the fractured publicly- and privately-motivated ideals they represent. In the crowded public forum that is resulting from the practical consequences, the concerns and fears, and the notoriety of all of this, stakeholder groups vie to maintain existing rights and the expectations they have nourished. Other groups, including those that have been historically dispossessed of water rights, press for institutional, legal, and, in broad instances, justice-driven normative change.

     In this course, we will study these layers of tumult in reference to the law as it has come to be, with attention to its historic taproots; its policy-based underpinnings, puzzles, and rationales; and its possible futures, as they are being contested over now. Our modes of inquiry will include traditional legal analysis; institutional, physical (e.g., infrastructure failure), and policy analysis, with an emphasis on problem- and solutions-identification; the substance of current debates; expert guest participation; and the creative and enlivening interactions that our multi-disciplinary student membership invites.

     A major design feature will involve “deep dives” into hot topics of important public concern. These openings to conflicts in-the-round mean to underline the fact that, while some class members are preparing to specialize in water-specific careers, all of us need to prepare through reflective engagement and a shared basis in knowledge for endemic kinds of water stress in whatever place we live, as these are our times. Water wisdom for long-term stewardship is our aim, as this role will belong to everyone, wherever we live and on the planet we call home.

    Students may be assembled into multi-disciplinary or single-discipline class discussion teams (or both). Everyone will write a very brief paper on a course-related topic of her or his own and a final research paper on an instructor-approved topic. Both are subject to graduate-level writing standards; no bots allowed. There will be no exams in the course.