Our Projects

Transdisciplinary Research to Stimulate Climate Resilience

 

Venn just labels

Example Projects

 

Public perceptions of potable water reuse   water circle

PI: Caroline Scruggs

Water is in short supply to meet existing demands, raising concerns about new limits on traditional water sources. ARID researchers collaborated with the water utility on a large public survey (n=4000, 46% response rate) to better understand Albuquerque residents’ knowledge of local water resource issues and perceptions of water reuse. Several published papers report aspects of the survey findings, which compared residents of the Albuquerque service area against other populations that have been surveyed on similar topics, created the first model to predict potable reuse acceptance based on demographic characteristics, and demonstrated a new approach for mapping survey data to understand the kinds of education, outreach, and trust-building are needed.

Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research Program  ecosystems circle

PIs: Jennifer Rudgers, Marcy Litvak, Seth Newsome, Kim Eichhorst

Year-to-year differences in climate make drylands among the most variable ecosystems on Earth. The fluctuating nature of drylands makes them excellent study systems to improve general understanding of the biological consequences of environmental variability. The Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program expands knowledge of the biological processes in drylands, guided by the question: How do long-term trends of climate variability drive the dynamics of dryland ecosystems and transitions among them? Knowledge of the biological consequences of climate variability has been limited because its effects play out over longer time periods than most scientific studies, making long-term support critical to advancing this scientific frontier. Forecasting the future of drylands requires determining the combined impacts of more variable rainfall and rising temperature trends, both of which are predicted under climate change. These changes may have the greatest effect at the borders between dryland ecosystem types. We study transitions among five major dryland ecosystems in North America (pinon-juniper woodlands, juniper savannas, Plains grasslands, and Chihuahuan Desert grasslands and shrublands) that converge at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico. Our focus on transitions puts the effort where the action is for understanding major, future changes in dryland ecosystem function and services. The Sevilleta LTER program develops new theory to predict the consequences of environmental variability over space, time, and scales of biological organization, and generates the long-term data needed to test these new predictions.

 

Decentralized water and wastewater systems in rural areas health circle  water circle  infrastructure circle

PIs: Andy Schuler and Heather Himmelberger

New Mexico’s population is currently served by decentralized wastewater systems. Providing effective, appropriate technologies to treat small systems is a critical challenge to maintain public health and protect potable water supplies in rural areas. State of the art technologies include biofilm-based systems such as moving bed bioreactors, which contain small, free-floating plastic media to remove pollutants, then discharge to leach fields. ARID research on these systems seeks to provide resilient, low maintenance technologies for clean water.

 

The Intermountain West Transformation Network  water circle  ecosystems circle   health circle  infrastructure circle

PIs: Melinda Morgan and additional team members

The Transformation Network is a partnership between UNM and 7 other Western U.S. universities and over 50 partner organizations who aim to build resilient communities and ecosystems throughout the Intermountain Western United States. The TN team is advancing understanding of resilient headwaters, food-energy-water systems, and innovative and equitable governance models and institutions.