David Freyberg in Brazil

David L. Freyberg, M S ’77, PhD ’81, has been teaching Stanford students since 1981 on a wide range of topics that includes hydrology, wetlands, water resources, dams and reservoirs, the nature of engineering and engineering design, and the American West.  He maintains a strong interest in water resources development, policy and history, with a focus on North America, the American West, the Caribbean, and Asia.  He is fascinated by rivers and wetlands as natural systems and their role in the social, cultural, aesthetic, economic, and political history of a region.  And the Pantanal is a huge, spectacular, and in many ways iconic, wetland/river system—the largest contiguous wetland in the world.  It's geologic, ecologic, and hydrologic histories are complex and unique.  It is home to a distinctive diversity of plants and animals.  At the same time it is home to the second-largest hydroelectric power project in the world, with an output about equal to that of Three Gorges in China.  And the population of cattle is roughly the same as people.  So its human history is as fascinating as its natural history.  Humans have been there at least 5500 years, but we still learning about the significant and growing human footprint.  Professor Freyberg is excited to share both the natural and human histories of this fascinating wetland/river system in the best possible setting--on the land and its (many) waters.

• Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University; Co-director of Graduate Studies; Member, Environmental Engineering Program

• Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

• Stanford representative, Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI)

• Science Advisory Panel, Sempervirens Fund