Researchers

With a focus on the Sonoran Desert my work looks to improve arid region resilience via a better understanding of how water management innovations affect human communities and ecosystems. The Sonoran Desert’s diverse set of social-ecological systems are promising examples about water resilience because they are place-based, thematically focused (e.g. economic activity, land-use/land-cover, climate), contain multi-level governance that allows for the emergence of local, bottom-up processes, and offer lessons about the role of governance and management in achieving global sustainability. In particular, my current and future research interests are about how we use science to improve stewardship of Earth’s human and environmental systems via understanding impacts, changes, consequences and benefits from technological or institutional action. To this end I have applied this question to a rural ranching community in Sonoran, Mexico and a highly urbanized city in Arizona, USA. In Rayón, Sonora I worked with ranchers to evaluate the state of their water, pasture, and economic resources in order to construct adaptive management programs and inter-basin discussions about the changing watershed. In Tucson, Arizona I have looked at the role integration between citizens, NGOs, and municipal government had in effecting urban greening via green infrastructure/rainwater harvesting in a hispanic, historically underserved, below-median income area of the city.