The Water Institute at UNC
Newsletter: June 21, 2012, Issue #19
www.waterinstitute.unc.edu

Side Event Schedule
Water Institute Leads Investigation Into Post-2015 Options for Global Monitoring of Urban Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Peter J. Kolsky, PhD joins UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
Bartram Receives Distinguished Professorship
GeoGen 2013 Conference Set for February 5-7, 2013
Recent Publications from UNC- Chapel Hill Researchers
Campus News: Water Institute Student Receives Award for Research

Side Event Schedule
We are pleased to announce the Side Event Schedule for the 2012 Water and Health Conference: Science, Policy and Innovation. Side events are interactive activities that provide the opportunity for individuals or groups to hone in on a specific area of interest. Conveners decide on the content and format of these events. We were pleased to recieve over 40 high quality proposals for side events for this year's conference. See schedule here.

Water Institute Leads Investigation Into Post-2015 Options for Global Monitoring of Urban Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
With support from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), a team of researchers from the Water Institute will review indicators used in global monitoring of drinking water and sanitation, assess current data availability, and identify additional, alternative and emerging indicators that may enable improved monitoring of current and future urban WaSH. Results of the study will contribute to the establishment of targets and indicators for the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. (more)

Peter J. Kolsky, PhD joins UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
Dr. Pete Kolsky, former Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist in the Latin America and Caribbean Region of the World Bank, has joined UNC as Professor of the Practice in Environmental Sciences and Engineering and Associate Director of Teaching and Learning for the Water Institute, where he will focus on such areas as appropriate distance learning for sector professionals and community of practice fora.

Dr. Kolsky, a proud alumnus of UNC’s MSEE degree program, brings to the Institute over 35 years of experience in the issues of water, sanitation and health in developing countries; these include over 12 years as a practicing engineer in the public and private sectors, 10 years of research, teaching and technical support at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and, most recently, 12 years with the World Bank, where he served as a focal point on sanitation issues. He has worked in over 30 countries and lived over a year each in Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Mozambique, Cambodia, and Madagascar.

Bartram Receives Distinguished Professorship
Water Institute Director, Jamie Bartram, was awarded the Don and Jennifer Holzworth Distinguished Professorship. The Professorship was created to retain or recruit at UNC a person who could contribute to improving the world’s access to clean water and sanitation through research and policy change. The Holzworths are dedicated supporters of the Gillings School of Global Public Health and support the School’s and UNC’s commitment to improving water and sanitation locally and globally. (more)

GeoGen 2013 Conference Set for February 5-7, 2013
GeoGen 2013- Towards sustainable safe drinking water supply in developing countries: The challenges of geogenic contaminants and mitigation measures will take place in Addis Abba, Ethiopia February 5-7, 2013. The conference, convened by Eawag and Addis Abba University, focuses on groundwater quality and understanding how to manage geogenic contaminants such as arsenic and fluoride. Abstract submissions are accepted through August 1, 2012. Further information can be found at the conference website.

Recent Publications from UNC- Chapel Hill Researchers
Composition of Inorganic and Organic Nutrient Sources Influences Phytoplankton Community Structure in the New River Estuary, North Carolina. Altman JC and Paerl HW. 2012 May 30 [OnlineFirst ahead of print].
High loading of varying nutrient forms from the watershed may be linked to the persistence of algal blooms of particular taxonomic groups in the estuary. Researchers found that significant increases in photo pigments associated with potentially harmful algal groups such as dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria were most frequently promoted by nutrient additions containing riverine dissolved organic nitrogen.
Available online: http://www.springerlink.com/content/ev808610q31h375v/

Campus News: Water Institute Student Receives Award for Research
Ovik Banerjee, a recent graduate of UNC and a Water Institute student, was awarded the Most Outstanding Research Award in Environmental Sciences Class of 2012. Ovik’s undergraduate thesis is entitled “Evaluating country-level population vulnerabilities to water access due to climate related hazards using high spatial resolution methods.” He used geographic information system (GIS) software and publically available data to generate high-resolution, population-based assessments of: (1) exposure to flood, drought and cyclone; (2) resilience of drinking water technologies in use to these climate-related hazards; and (3) overall vulnerability by adding country-level adaptive capacity. Ovik's Student Page.