Water Negotiator Aaron Wolf Spreads Liquid Hope

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Wolf also cofounded and directs the Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters, a consortium of colleagues at 17 educational institutions located around the world. Its goal is to develop a new generation of water-conflict experts based on every continent who can provide one another with a community of support.

“Aaron’s work addresses what is probably going to be the biggest recurring policy issue for the next 50 years,” says Sherman Bloomer, dean of the OSU College of Science. “It’s one of the very best things that has happened at Oregon State at the time I’ve been here.”

Wolf grew up in a desert—two deserts, actually. Born in prerevolutionary Iran, where his father taught English literature, he spent part of his childhood in California and part in Israel, where his family relocated to honor what he calls their “Zionist ideals.”

Moving from the Middle East halfway across the world and then back again must have been jarring, but what ultimately impressed Wolf most were the similarities of his two homelands. Both California and Israel were, and are, arid places. Water—where to get it, how to conserve it, and what parties are challenging one another for it—was an urgent topic of discussion in each of the societies.

As he absorbed a love of learning and a sense of spiritual mission from his family, Wolf developed an awareness of water as a life-giving commodity. His interest in natural resources and how they are used was refined at San Francisco State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in geography and resource management.

Wolf was drafted into the Israeli army (he holds both American and Israeli citizenship), serving in Lebanon and on the front lines of the first Palestinian uprising. “That’s when I got really interested in conflict resolution,” he says. “When you’re in uniform, you realize there’s got to be a better way.” After completing his military obligation, he moved back to the United States, earning a master’s degree in water resources management and a doctorate in land resources.

After finishing his work with the State Department for the Madrid peace conference, Wolf began his academic career at the University of Alabama. “They get 60 or 70 inches of rain a year,” he says, “but there is still tension [over water] between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. I did a lot of thinking conceptually about what happens within a watershed. What are the dynamics?”

His attempts to apply scientific knowledge to political and diplomatic disputes were noticed by Oregon State officials, who hired him to join the faculty in 1998. “Doing effective science requires finding partners in places other than your own discipline, if you want that science to have any effect,” Bloomer says. “A great deal of the point of doing the science is to provide input that will lead to sound policy decisions.”

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