Looking Ahead to Maryland 2050: Living in Our Environment

Abstracts

Panel II:  Maryland in a Changing World

Coming to Grips with Significant Water Challenges

Gerry Galloway, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Abstract
Climate change, unparalleled growth out of the cities and into the countryside creating demands for new water sources, emerging contaminants that will tax existing treatments systems,  a need to restore damaged ecosystems, and a much abused and now struggling water infrastructure portend challenges for Maryland communities and the State as a whole over the next decades.  Failure to deal with environmental disruptions, flood threats, water shortages, water pollution, and an infrastructure in need of maintenance and upgrade will severely limit the potential of the State.  Dealing with these issues will require significant expenditures and political will to deal with vested interests and fiscal shortfalls.

Speaker information
Gerry Galloway is a Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering and Affiliate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a Visiting scholar at the US Engineer Army Institute for Water Resources.  A civil engineer, public administrator and geographer, he has served as a water resources consultant to a variety of national and international government and business organizations. He was a Presidential appointee to the Mississippi River Commission and the American Heritage Rivers Advisory Committee and served as Secretary of the US-Canada International Joint Commission. In 1993-1994, he led a White House study of the causes of the 1993 Mississippi River Flood. During a 38-year career in the military he served in various command and staff assignments in the US and overseas, retiring in 1995 as a brigadier general and dean of academics at the US Military Academy.  He is president-elect of the American Water Resources Association, an Honorary Diplomate of the American Academy of Water Resources Engineering and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a graduate of the Military Academy and holds Masters Degrees from Princeton and Pennsylvania State Universities and the US Army Command and General Staff College and a doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.