John Farner, a leading expert on water, land use, and agriculture, has been named executive director of the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy. Farner will lead the Babbitt Center’s work to promote the integration of land and water management in the United States and around the world.

Farner, who joined the Babbitt Center in September, was previously global chief sustainability officer of the precision agriculture technology company Netafim. He succeeds founding director Jim Holway, who is retiring after leading the Babbitt Center since its launch by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in 2017.

“The Babbitt Center has established itself as a thought leader at the nexus of land use planning and water management in the Colorado River Basin under Jim Holway’s leadership, with a focus on connecting and supporting the communities that steward this essential resource,” said George W. McCarthy, president of the Lincoln Institute. “John Farner brings experience and perspectives to this role that will help us deepen our roots in the region, even as we expand our knowledge base and global influence.”

Farner has spent more than 20 years promoting solutions to global environmental challenges, and has addressed the United States Congress, the United Nations, and various other national and global organizations. Before joining Netafim, he served as head of sustainability, public affairs, and strategic initiatives for the US-based Irrigation Association, where he was the chief advocate and spokesperson for the industry before national and international policymakers, as well as NGOs. At Netafim, Farner oversaw initiatives related to agriculture, water replenishment, and corporate social responsibility.

“Water is the lifeblood of the West, and the decisions we make today will have lasting impacts well into our future,” Farner said. “I’m thrilled to be joining such a talented team as we embrace the challenge of making a positive impact on our land, water, and livelihoods. The spotlight on the Colorado River Basin is growing, and the Babbitt Center has proven to be the best resource for tools and solutions that help communities secure their water future. I’m excited to build upon our efforts and expand our reach, sharing what we’ve learned with others facing similar challenges in the United States and around the world.”

Since its founding, the Babbitt Center has developed tools and best practices to support community-led management of land and water resources in the Colorado River Basin, which is dependent on one of the most heavily used and overallocated rivers in the world. It works throughout the seven Colorado River Basin states, binationally across the Basin into Mexico, and with Native American Tribes, helping communities become more resilient and building an exchange of transformative ideas with other arid and semiarid regions.

“Effective land and water management is critically important, especially as the climate changes,” McCarthy noted. “The Babbitt Center is testing innovative new methodologies and approaches for both urban and rural communities, and we’re ready to share these ideas broadly as we help build capacity and resilience in the Basin and beyond.”

Learn more about the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy.

Don’t miss the Mayor’s Desk book, coming this fall! 

With a population of nearly 33 million and growing, Delhi is the second-largest metropolitan area in the world after Tokyo, and on track to become number one. Shelly Oberoi, 39, was elected mayor of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), a governing body representing some 20 million of those people, in early 2023. Born in the capital city, Oberoi was named a vice president of the women’s wing of the anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party before becoming a ward city councilor in 2022. Oberoi, who had to run for the mayoral post several times due to parliamentary voting challenges, promised that “Delhi will be cleaned and transformed” in her tenure. She has been an assistant professor at Delhi University and Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, and has authored several research papers on corporate social responsibility, global finance, and other topics.

Anthony Flint: You’re the first mayor in a decade to oversee all of central city Delhi, after reunification of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. What kind of governing challenges and opportunities come along with that?

Shelly Oberoi: Governing the Municipal Corporation after its unification has come along with a fair share of challenges and opportunities. On one hand, centralization of powers allows for streamlined decision-making, enhanced accountability, and improved collaboration across departments. While centralization allows for more efficiency, it also requires careful planning to ensure equitable distribution of resources to address the diverse needs of different areas within Delhi. Balancing these needs and optimizing resource allocation is a significant challenge that we are addressing at the moment. On the other hand, unification has also offered us an opportunity for policy alignment. With a unified municipal corporation, we can now align policies and regulations across all areas of Delhi. Policy alignment allows us to address issues such as education, property tax, and new initiatives in a coordinated manner, leading to more effective civil planning and development across the city. This enables consistent implementation of rules and regulations, creating a level playing field and ensuring fairness and transparency in governance.

AF: You said upon being elected that you would work “to make Delhi the city that it should have been”—what does that vision look like, and what are the biggest obstacles to achieving it?

SO: My vision for Delhi is based upon the Aam Aadmi Party’s 10 guarantees, as announced by our National Convenor and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. These guarantees reflect the aspirations of the people and prioritize the overall well-being of the city. We have envisioned a clean and beautiful Delhi, free from the blight of landfills, where waste management systems are streamlined and cleanliness is promoted throughout the city. We are establishing a culture of transparency and accountability, ensuring a corruption-free Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Our vision also includes providing a permanent solution to the problem of parking through efficient management systems and addressing the issue of stray animals with compassionate and sustainable measures. Moreover, we aim to have well-maintained roads that prioritize safety and smooth traffic flow, improving the overall commuting experience for residents.

The work of the Aam Aadmi Party’s state government in Delhi is already talked about globally, particularly in the fields of education and healthcare. Chief Minister Kejriwal has administered revolutions in the landscape of India’s public education and public health sectors. People have started believing that government facilities can be trusted, that they can offer them the equal standard of services for free that private facilities do at exorbitant prices.

Building on this momentum, we are working with a special focus on transforming schools and hospitals into centers of excellence. We are also enhancing parks across the city, creating green spaces for citizens to enjoy. In a welcome change, we are ensuring regular salaries for workers and offering them a better environment within the MCD to promote job security and build a motivated workforce. Simplifying the process of obtaining licenses for traders, creating a welcoming business environment, and establishing designated vending zones for street vendors are also part of our vision.

However, we acknowledge the challenges posed by rapid urbanization, budgetary constraints, stakeholder engagement, and coordination among different agencies. By recognizing these challenges and proactively addressing them, we can work toward making Delhi the city it should have always been—a thriving, inclusive, and sustainable metropolis that residents can be proud to call home and, above all, the number-one capital of the world.

AF: Regarding air quality—brought to international attention by such documentary films as All That Breathes—what are some short-term solutions? Please also comment on your approach regarding garbage and landfills. The two issues are related, in that the new waste-to-energy plant will seemingly help solve one problem while further contributing to air pollution.

SO: Air quality is indeed a pressing concern for Delhi, and addressing it requires a multi-faceted approach that incorporates both short-term and long-term solutions. However, air doesn’t belong to any one geographical boundary; a lot of factors that arise in our neighboring states adversely impact Delhi. Thus, the challenge needs a concerted and coordinated approach from all stakeholders, including the central government and neighboring state governments.

The Delhi government is leading an extensive effort to reduce air pollution through its Summer and Winter Action Plans. The government accordingly decides upon short- and long-term solutions as part of these action plans, be it stopping dust pollution and industrial pollution, improving on solid waste management, or conducting real-time source apportionment studies. Under these action plans, the MCD has been delegated the responsibility of keeping a check on the factors under its domain and maintaining vigils on smaller roads under its domain. The state government regularly convenes review meetings and the MCD has extended its unconditional support to help with these efforts. It is important to also note that due to these efforts, the air pollution levels in Delhi have already seen a welcome change.

As for garbage and landfills, we are actively working upon improving the city’s solid waste management system by means of promoting waste segregation, installing fixed-compactor transfer stations, and shutting down neighborhood garbage dump yards. We have also set a plan to eliminate the three garbage landfills of the city. Of this we are on track to completely clear off the Okhla landfill by the end of this year and the Bhalswa landfill by the first half of next year. These targets have been set by the state as part of a dedicated approach to clean the city, and Chief Minister Kejriwal has been monitoring the daily progress to further strengthen MCD’s resolve toward this mission.

AF: Are there any policies in the works to address the city’s notorious traffic congestion? How does that fit in with your overall plan to enhance infrastructure and make the city more resilient?

SO: Traffic is mostly beyond the domain of the MCD. In Delhi, the municipal body only looks after minor roads and neighborhood lanes, whose upkeep we are working upon with utmost commitment ever since taking over the reins. Along with the help of our councilors and local citizens, we are identifying all such roads and lanes that need any sort of repair and ensuring that the task is dealt with. At the larger level, the Delhi Government’s Public Works Department and Transport Department are doing a great job of reducing traffic congestion in the city by upgrading the existing infrastructure, building new flyovers and underpasses, and introducing electric buses.

AF: The Delhi metro area—with a population of nearly 33 million and growing by nearly 3 percent per year—seems to warrant a more centralized form of governance. Is there any chance of reform to allow mayors in India to manage their cities as leaders do in major cities in other parts of the world?

SO: In principle, I do recognize the need for reforms that empower city leaders to effectively manage their cities, similar to the governance models observed in major cities around the world. However, the current governance structure in India has its limitations that we respect, and we prefer to mull about within our own landscape. In theory there is always a chance for reform and exploration of alternative models. We can explore enhancing the capacity of mayors and local authorities through training programs, knowledge sharing, and collaboration with international city management institutions that can equip them with the necessary skills and expertise to effectively lead and manage their cities. We can also promote collaborative governance models that involve active participation of citizens, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders to facilitate better decision-making and ensure that the diverse interests and concerns of the city’s residents are adequately represented.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, contributing editor to Land Lines, and host of the Land Matters podcast. 

Lead image: Leaders are working to improve air quality and clear landfills in Delhi, which is on track to become the world’s largest metropolitan area. Credit: PRABHASROY via iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus.

The Lincoln Institute provides a variety of early- and mid-career fellowship opportunities for researchers. In this series, we follow up with our fellows to learn more about their work.

While pursuing her doctorate at the University of Arizona, Neha Gupta participated in the Babbitt Center’s Dissertation Fellowship Program, which assists PhD students whose research focuses on integrating land and water policy to advance water sustainability and resilience. Gupta is now a joint assistant research professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. We caught up with her to talk about climate change, urban stormwater innovations, and her favorite cli-fi novels; this interview has been edited for length and clarity.

JON GOREY: What is the focus of your work, and how did your fellowship help advance that research?

NEHA GUPTA: A lot of my work is focused on urban hydrology, the use of stormwater as a resource, especially in arid regions, and collaborative approaches to water resource planning. I received the fellowship at the beginning of 2020—as we know, a very chaotic time in global history—so not only did it help me get across the finish line with my dissertation, but it gave me some stability in that time as well. Since then, I’ve engaged with people at the Babbitt Center and am working a little more closely with them; I got involved with being a small-group facilitator for some of the exploratory scenario planning work that they’re doing with workshops in Cochise County, and I point to the center as a place the students I’m working with and mentoring might want to partner with or eventually work for.

JG: What are you working on now, and what are you interested in working on next?

NG: I’m especially focused on green stormwater infrastructure. I’m involved in a lot of collaborative projects with the City of Tucson, the Pima County Flood Control District, and other water managers across the state. I’m also working on a statewide water reliability planning effort with the Department of Water Resources. So I’m helping manage that project at a high level, and also specifically looking at opportunities to use stormwater to recharge groundwater and support water resource needs in Arizona as things start to look a bit tighter across the Colorado River Basin.

In Tucson, we have a program called Storm to Shade that’s focused on maximizing green infrastructure, with a community outreach component and a maintenance and monitoring component. That program involves a couple of different agencies, and I work a lot with them. So it’s not just myself working in urban hydrology, but we have other people in the university thinking about it from a social, community-based perspective with an equity lens, we have landscape architects, and we all try to knit our work together . . . because stormwater really sits at the intersection of landscape architecture, urban planning, hydrology, soil health, equity, and more socially based components and perspectives.

JG: A tropical storm just dropped months’ worth of rain on Southern California in a few hours. Is that the kind of situation where some of that extreme rainfall could be collected, or is that more of a disaster than an opportunity?

NG: We’re trying to make it both. That’s exactly the kind of work that we’re trying to focus on. When we do get these bigger storms, a lot of that water is considered a threat to property. But that’s excess water that can be harnessed and used to support plants, which can then help address the urban heat island effect, and can create microclimate benefits in different areas of the state. They call it urban enhanced runoff, and that can be used for groundwater recharge projects. It’s really about treating water in a more holistic sense. And thinking about equity across an urban region, the wealthier areas tend to have more canopy and lower temperatures. So capturing urban stormwater is a resources benefit, but it can address a whole other slew of issues.

JG: When it comes to your work, what keeps you up at night? And what gives you hope?

NG: There isn’t a lot that keeps me up at night. We know that we live in a water-stressed region. It’s been this way for a long time, and it’s really about having creative ways to move water around to meet various water demands. We know that we live in an area that’s getting hotter. We know that we live in an area that’s going to be experiencing more unpredictable precipitation, whether it’s record-breaking dry years or record-breaking wet years. So I think to stay in this space in the long run, you can’t let those things keep you up at night. Otherwise you won’t get any sleep to show up the next day.

I think the hardest part, or maybe the thing that does keep me up at night, is the heat and the temperatures. Those probably cause the most immediate threat to life. But that’s why we’re focusing on ways to increase and support the urban canopy.

I’m very much a solutions-focused person, and we know these problems are not new. They’re just getting bigger and more pressing and unpredictable. But there are a lot of things we can do to address them. It really requires us working collaboratively.

JG: What’s the best book you’ve read lately?

NG: I am a pretty big fan of the “cli-fi” or climate fiction genre. On the more hopeful end, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson is a great exercise in thinking about not only some of the terrible things that might happen as a result of climate change—and while this book came out a few years ago, we see some of these things showing up in the news now; the first chapter starts out with a heat wave in India that’s above the wet bulb temperature that humans can survive in—but also a lot of different environmental strategies. A book I recently finished that is on the more concerning end, but that I really enjoyed—it read like a movie—was called The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger. In that book, a Category 6 hurricane hits Miami, and essentially wipes it off the map. He really links together a lot of our existing societal struggles, but in the context of natural disasters that are amplified by climate change. So they’re kind of two sides of the genre—one’s a little more hopeful, the other a little more concerning—but I think they help seed the imagination and help us look a few steps out and wrap our heads around an overall slow-moving crisis that shows its face most visibly in natural disasters. I really appreciate a good story—but a story that can also help me with my own work and wrapping my head around the bigger picture.

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Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Image: University of Arizona Assistant Research Professor and former Babbitt Fellow Neha Gupta. Credit: Courtesy photo.