On June 12th 2007, at the Daila center in West Jerusalem, Clemens Messerschmid, presented the first of a two-part lecture series sponsored by the Alternative Information Center, titled "Till the Last Drop: The Palestinian Water Crisis in the West Bank, Hydrogeology and Hydropolitics of a Regional Conflict."
Mr. Messerschmid is a German hydrogeologist who has worked for many years on international water projects in the West Bank.
He introduced the physical settings of water resources in the region and their extremely asymmetrical allocation between the Palestinians and Israelis.
In addition, he gave an introduction to the hydrogeology of the shared aquifers and an overview of the historical development of their utilization, focusing on the years of overt occupation between the 1967 War and The Oslo Interim Agreement of September 1995.
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His lectures were some of the most extensive and researched discussions on this subject of the relation between the occupation and the conflict over water resources that I have heard, and West Jerusalem was an interesting venue (and part of the reason I set up the lectures there), as the audience included a few academic hydrologists from Israeli universities, an Israeli economic journalist from Yideot Aharonoth, members of Israeli environmental NGOs and then some other locals and internationals. So there was some very interesting critiques and discussion back and forth (especially after the lecture section during the question answer portion...which sadly, I couldn't record due to technical limitations...I forgot to bring the second mic for the audience), and Clemens and his statistics stood up well to the argumentation.
Clemens uses a quite extensive slide presentation with maps, charts and statistics along with his lecture. I will be making a version that has the audio with the slide presentation together in a few weeks, but for now, you can download the powerpoint presentation and the audio podcast separately and flip slides along with the audio.
To download the slide presentation that goes along with the lecture, click here: http://www.alternativenews.org/images/stories/news/Last_drop_AIC_1.pps
To listen to the podcast: http://www.alternativenews.org/podcasts/podcasts/news-from-within-podcast-till-the-last-drop-the-palestinian-water-crisis-in-the-west-bank-20070708.html
To see the archived shows: http://www.alternativenews.org/podcasts/archive.html
For those who prefer iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=253955206