Forester Media is about to launch an educational component, Forester University, and will be presenting two free webinars in March. The catch? Seating is limited—there are 200 spots available for each webinar—and if you join us for one or both of these, we’ll ask for your feedback at the end.
One of the webinars is especially relevant for erosion and sediment control professionals: “Fluvial Geomorphology 101 – What’s Wrong About Riprap.” It will take place on March 10, 2011, at 2:00 p.m. EST. Click here to register.
Have you ever watched or read the news and seen a house or a car bobbing down the middle of a river or seen a highway or bridge washed out? These tragedies are likely the result of a well-meaning engineer or developer forgetting to look at the bigger picture—how watersheds, rivers, and stream channels naturally work. Everybody seems surprised when a streambank erodes, bringing a piece of road or a home along with it—except for the fluvial geomorphologists!
Participants in this webinar will learn to recognize the functional components of a watershed and river and to understand their basic processes—in other words, how a river works. The webinar will define “channel stability” at both the watershed scale and the channel scale, and will present case studies of environmentally sensitive streambank stabilization projects.
The webinar will be presented by John McCullah, CPESC, owner of Salix Applied Earthcare, and Stephanie Moret. Ph.D. Stephanie will begin by presenting some fluvial geomorphology basics at the watershed scale. Most of the discussion will then focus on John’s work at the reach scale, where the work is usually done, including habitat, enhancements, substrate complexity, a little about “proper functioning condition” for the implementer/designer, and why riprap is bad. Click here to read more about the webinar and the instructors and to reserve your space.
The other webinar, “NPDES Phase II: The Public Elements – Promoting Sustainable Behavior,” deals with two of the requirements of the Phase II stormwater permits: public education and outreach, and public participation and involvement. It will take place March 8, 2011, at 1:00 p.m. EST. Click here to register.
The webinar explains why these components of Phase II are necessary, identifies social marketing tools to foster behavior change, and shows you how to design and evaluate effective public education programs to promote sustainable behavior. This webinar is essential if you are responsible for these “public elements” of a Phase II permit—or if you already have programs in place but aren’t sure how effective they are.
The webinar is presented by Stephanie Moret, Ph.D., LEG, PG, who, as manager of the water resources program for the City of Bainbridge Island, Washington, supervised the development and implementation of these two Phase II public elements. She is a natural resources scientist, educator, and coalition-builder with over 17 years of experience leading governments, planners, institutions, land owners, non-profits, and project teams towards increased sustainability. She is also the Director of Education and Training for Forester University.
You can read more about the webinar and Stephanie’s background, as well as reserve your space, by clicking here.
Forester University provides professional development opportunities for specialists involved in all the areas covered by Forester Media magazines: earth moving, energy reliability and efficiency, erosion and sediment control, solid waste management, water resource management, and stormwater. Subject matter experts in each field provide instruction through webinars, webcasts, and videos. You can find more information on Forester University here - www.forester.net/university/index.html.