Kelly Cobourn, Zeynep Hansen and Scott Lowe presented research pertaining to water rights institutions at the American Economics Association (AEA) meetings in Chicago on Jan. 8. Cobourn and Hansen organized and moderated the session titled “Water Rights: Historical Perspectives and Emerging Issues.” Hansen and Lowe presented a paper titled “The Political Economy of Major Water Infrastructure Investments in the Western United States and the Impact on Agriculture,” and Cobourn presented a paper titled “Property Rights and Conjunctive Management: Implications of Hydraulic Connectivity between Surface and Ground Water.” The acceptance rate for sessions at the AEA meetings is about 3 percent to 4 percent for institutions similar to Boise State.
Cobourn also gave an invited oral presentation at the American Geophysical Union meetings in San Francisco on Dec. 7, 2011. The presentation, titled “Ecological vs. Economic Sustainability: An Integrated Analysis of Thresholds in Semi-Arid Western Rangelands,” was included as part of the session “Identifying and Quantifying Change in Ecological Systems.”