Nexus of Land and Water - Southwest Initiative on Land Health and Water Resources
The Wright-Ingraham Institute, in partnership with Mountain Studies Institute is organizing this year's Field Stations program, titled Nexus of Land and Water - Southwest Initiative on Land Health and Water Resources, as an interdisciplinary, solutions-based project to generate creative approaches addressing the issue of Dust-on-Snow in the San Juan Mountains, and communities and ecosystems that depend on them.
A core team for this project, made up of collaborators from the Wright-Ingraham Institute, Mountain Studies Institute, the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, New Mexico State University, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Haven, are soliciting scholars, professionals, researchers, post-graduates, master’s and doctoral students to join the project as interdisciplinary problem solvers.
Dust is produced from a multitude of anthropogenic and natural sources in arid lands, transported through the atmosphere, and eventually deposited onto the snowpack. This dust deposition on snow changes the reflectivity of the snowpack, leading to early and higher snowmelt rates. This, in turn, places stress on water storage, heightens the risk of floods and impacts drought. Although the project is centered around a specific geographic area, the issue is of global relevance.
This interdisciplinary project brings together experts in hydrology, agronomy, soil science, agriculture, range management, education and design fields including architecture and media arts to develop pilot projects to begin to address and find solutions to this complex problem.
The application is open until June 1, 2024. Selected interdisciplinary problem solvers will be offered a $3,000 stipend for participating in the project between June, 2024 - November 2024. The project is hybrid, with virtual listening sessions in June, online/virtual bi-weekly working sessions from July-September, and a three day in-person workshop in Colorado in October 2024
