Hydropolitics, Hydrohegemony and Hydrophobia: My Short Life and Times in the South Caucasus and Iran

Mershon Center's Seminar Series Hydropolitics: Water Scarcity and Water Security, co-sponsored by the Global Water Initiative, Center for Slavic and East European Studies, and Middle East Studies Center, welcomes Michael Campana, Professor of Geography, Environmental Sciences and Marine Resource Management at Oregon State University, who will present 'Hydropolitics, Hydrohegemony and Hydrophobia: My Short Life and Times in the South Caucasus and Iran.'

After the Soviet Union’s dissolution, the Kura-Araks Basin became an international river basin with respect to the South Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Despite differences among these countries, they depend greatly on the Kura-Araks Basin. They proposed to jointly monitor basin's surface water quality and obtained funding to do so from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Science for Peace Programme. Thus, the South Caucasus River Monitoring Project was born in late 2002 and formally ended in December 2009. The project was a model of collaboration and cooperation in a region where such traits have at times been in short supply. Not only were valuable data collected, but collegial professional relationships also were forged among the participants. In the long run, this latter aspect will likely prove to be the most important product, not just for the South Caucasus, but for others as well.

Campana will recount his experience as project director for the South Caucasus River Monitoring Project and conclude with some reflections – hydrologic and otherwise - on his January 2015 trip to Iran’s Zayandehrud River Basin.

Michael E. Campana is professor of hydrogeology and water resources management at Oregon State University and technical director of the American Water Resources Association. He formerly directed Oregon State's Institute for Water and Watersheds and the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico, where he is emeritus professor. Prior to these positions he was a research hydrologist at the Desert Research Institute.

His expertise and interests include hydrogeology; hydrophilanthropy; integrated water resources management); water, sanitation, and hygiene in developing regions; water policy; and education. Campana is a past president of American Water Resources Association, past chair of the Scientists and Engineers division of the National Ground Water Association, vice president of the National Ground Water Research and Educational Foundation, and serves on the steering committee of the Global Water Partnership.

He founded and runs his own hydrophilanthropic foundation, the Ann Campana Judge Foundation. As WaterWired he blogs and tweets on water and related issues. He has a bachelor's in geology from the College of William and Mary and master's and PhD degrees in hydrology from University of Arizona.