HWS News
22 October 2019 • Faculty Kinne On Water Shortage Issues
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Beth Kinne and Penn State Law Senior Lecturer Lara Fowler recently gave the webinar, "Climate Change and Water Management in Eastern States: Overcoming Barriers to Innovation in Regulated Riparianism" through Penn State Extension in October. It is archived in Penn State Extension's Water Resource Webinars.
In addition, on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017, Kinne and Fowler will also deliver another webinar with a similar focus through the American Water Resources Association. The webinar will feature two other attorneys.
Their "Climate Change and Water Management in Eastern States" webinar earlier this semester was the subject of the article, Water Shortages Could Become More Common, which appeared in Lancaster Farming, the leading Northeast and Mid-Atlantic farm newspaper.
The article notes that farmers in [those regions] may face increasing challenges with water availability as the warming climate alters weather patterns. In the piece, Kinne is cited discussing the causes and implications of depleted groundwater reserves now affecting nearly all regions of the U.S., including the Northeast.
"Due to changes in rainfall patterns, farmers are starting to irrigate when historically they have not irrigated, and it's making a big different in their ability to maintain a crop," Kinne says.
"The problem is not helped," she explains, "by incomplete watershed monitoring practices and outdated or imprecise regulations." "Nevertheless," she says, "water shortages can drive cooperation as much as they drive conflict."
Kinne, who has taught at HWS since 2008, holds degrees in biology, resource management and environmental studies, and Asian and comparative law. She teaches courses in business law, environmental law, natural resource law and environmental studies, among others.