DIRECTOR'S WELCOME LETTER

Greetings! 

With great pleasure we announce the establishment of the Center for Integrated Water Research at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  This event culminates a ten-year period of research, teaching, and increasing awareness that fresh-water issues are of central concern not just in California but throughout the world.  If we are to understand and successfully address water issues, we need to combine scientific, engineering, and policy research in ways that move us toward workable solutions. 

Our Center is dedicated to collaborative research that addresses crucial fresh-water problems. We focus on water policy, economics, and communications.  We are concerned with water relations between cities and their surrounding regions, including how water and water infrastructure is owned, managed, treated, paid for, and transferred between users, and processes by which these decisions are made.

Establishing the Center for Integrated Water Research turns a new page in our water research efforts.  We look forward to building our research capabilities to serve the people of California, the United States, and others. We will continue to build collaborative research teams that draw on universities, state and national government, water agencies, private-sector firms, and non-governmental organizations, all of whom help us define, fund, and carry out our research.  And we will serve our campus and students by bringing interesting speakers to campus and supporting internships and conference attendance by students.

The fresh water challenges we face are great but our determination to solve them is even greater.  We are dedicated to finding these answers.

With very best wishes,
Brent M. Haddad