Advanced information technologies for assessing nonpoint source pollution in the vadose zone: Conference overview

The information age has ushered in an awareness of and concern for global e nvironmental problems such as climatic change, ozone depletion, deforestati on, desertification, and nonpoint source (NPS) pollution Nonpoint source po llution is the single greatest threat to surface and subsurface drinking wa ter resources. Nonpoint source pollutants also pose a threat to sustainable agriculture, which is viewed as the most viable means of meeting the food demands of a world population that is expected to reach 9.4 billion by the middle of the next century, The ability to accurately assess present and fu ture NPS pollution impacts on ecosystems ranging from local to global scale s would provide a powerful tool for environmental stewardship and guiding f uture human activities. Assessing NPS pollutant is a multidisciplinary prob lem. To address the problem, advanced information technologies and methodol ogies are needed that draw from all areas of science and are applied in a s patial context. It was from this setting that the 1997 Joint AGU Chapman/SS SA Outreach Conference Application of GIS, Remote Sensing, Geostatistics, a nd Solute Transport Modeling for Assessing Nonpoint Source Pollutants in th e Vadose Zone (19-24 Oct. 1997, Riverside, CA) materialized. The objective of the conference was to examine current multidisciplinary technologies and methodologies for assessing NPS pollutants in the vadose zone, and to expl ore new conceptual approaches. It was the conference's goal to provide a fo rum to stimulate multidisciplinary interaction to enhance the development o f techniques for the realtime measurement and modeling of NPS pollution in the vadose zone and subsurface waters.