Researchers dive into freshwater ecosystem focused study with $2.5M DOE grant
August 15, 2023 - Marissa Lucero
If you travel up stream to the tip-top of the headwaters in the San Juan Range of the Colorado Rockies, you’ll reach the very beginning of the Rio Grande River, and what happens at the very top helps determine the quality and quantity of water that we use every single day. Those beginnings are what researchers refer to as headwater stream networks, making up nearly 80 percent of river miles on earth. However, they are also some of the most overlooked areas in research within the academy.
Now, with the help of a $2.5M grant awarded by the Department of Energy, The University of New Mexico (UNM) will lead a group of researchers who will concentrate on five very different headwater stream networks spread across the U.S. continental precipitation gradient.
“Headwater stream networks are vital to downstream ecosystems,” said Alex Webster, UNM assistant professor and principal investigator on the project.
The proposal, Integrating catchment expansion-contraction intro cross-continental hydrybiogeochemical prediction, was submitted through UNM’s Center for the Advancement of Spatial Informatics Research and Education and investigators will begin their work next month.
“Historically, we treated these headwater watersheds like black boxes. We tend to care about how much water comes out of them and the quality of that water but not so much about the reasons why,” Webster said. “There is a lot going on in them, they are changing very quickly because they are very sensitive to climate change, including to changes in snowpack, and because that’s where streams tend to dry up first.”
Read more in the UNM Newsroom
