Professor Jay Lund enjoys teaching, researching, and engaging in many aspects of theory and practice for water management and policy, usually trying to integrate economics and operations research with traditional engineering.
He serves as the Systems Analysis and Hydro-Economic Modeling Lead at UNU-INWEH, tasked with leading the economic analysis component of the Economic of Drought project funded by GIZ and UNCCD.
Over his career, Professor Lund has particularly engaged in working on a wide range of water problems in California with many collaborators and remains enthusiastic about the potential of system analysis and optimization to provide understanding and insights for management and policy in California and the rest of the world.
He was on the Advisory Committee for the 1998 and 2005 California Water Plan Update. He has previously served as Convenor of the California Water and Environment Modeling Forum and Chair of California’s Delta Independent Science Board. He has long been involved in applying economic and optimization ideas to provide insights into water and environmental problems, including the development and use of the CALVIN model of California’s water supply system.
Professor Lund is the Vice Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California–Davis. He has a B.A. in International Relations and Regional Planning from the University of Delaware (1979) and a BS in Civil Engineering, MA in Geography, and PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington (Seattle). He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, has over 400 publications, and has advised over 150 graduate students, including 15 who are faculty at top-tier research universities around the world.