Under Western Skies, an annual environmental conference held by Mount Royal University in Calgary will focus on water issues this year.
Titled Water—Events, Trends, Analysis, the conference is expected to attract 600–800 attendees for notable presentations from:
- Robert Sandford of United Nations University Institute for Water, EPCOR Chair for Water and Climate Security;
- John Pomeroy Canada Research Chair in Water Resources & Climate Change, University of Saskatchewan;
- And Kim Sturgess Founder and CEO, Alberta WaterSMART.
Alberta WaterSMART is a strategic and engineering consulting firm. They “develop and execture water related strategies and projects for its clients and partners.” WaterSMART has tackled a wide range of issues such as collaborative watershed planning, stormwater management, and water reuse.
“We think water is a very important issue not only for Calgarians and Albertans, but right across Canada,” said Rob Boschman, a professor at MRU who helps to organize the event.
The conference will also feature the Bifrost project, a documentary installation that is the result of collaboration between media artists and environmental researchers. The project is described as attempting “ to communicate powerfully the human stakes involved in Climate Change through a coordinated multimodal approach, using parallel communicative channels and immersive art platforms as well as creative and educational forms of public engagement.” The project is an extension of the 2015 U.N. Conference on Climate Change.
The event is being sponsored by the Miistakis Institute, which aims to “broker, transmit, and mobilize knowledge,” moving that knowledge from academic spheres to the organizations and individuals working in land and resource management.
Under Western Skies run from September 27–30 at the Roderick Mah Centre on the Mount Royal University campus.
Learn more about Under Western Skies at their website or visit their program.
For more details on Alberta WaterSMART’s work follow this link.
Visit the Miistakis Institute to learn more about their work.
