Climate change will dramatically impact streamflow and its contributions to the Colorado River by increasing forest water use and reducing groundwater levels, new study finds. Researchers from Desert Research Institute (DRI), USGS, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory teamed up for the new study, published May 23 in Nature Water.
The summer 2024 data collection effort provides community members, legislators, and scientists with detailed maps of the region’s urban heat island. Reno, Nev. (January 13, 2025) – The Reno-Sparks Heat mapping project team is thrilled to announce the successful...
Reno, Nev. (January 15, 2025) - DRI scientists Joe McConnell and Nathan Chellman co-authored a new study that examines a 6,000-year-old forest preserved in a Rocky Mountain ice patch. The research, which was led by the USGS and Montana State University, used the...
Detailed future projections for 633 tribal areas focus on agricultural climate variables By Kelsey Fitzgerald, Native Climate Earth’s climate future is often discussed in terms of degrees of warming, but for farmers and ranchers, temperature is not the only...
DRI’s Anne Heggli is partnering with the National Weather Service to understand flood risk from rain-on-snow storms in real-time, protecting communities and enabling water conservation throughout Nevada and California.
DRI’s STEM Education Program is holding free events focused on developing literacy through engaging science activities for Pre-K children 5 and younger throughout Nevada. Through hands-on experiments, story time, and interactive games, the events will bring ecology and electricity to life for the whole family. Each child will also receive free books to take home (while supplies last).
Along Alaska’s western coastline, 400 miles from the nearest road system, villagers from the Indigenous community of Newtok were scheduled for permanent evacuation in mid-October due to the irreversible threat of rising seas. The story, recounted by Newtok resident Della Carl in September at the National Indigenous Climate Conference in Anchorage, Alaska, embedded itself deep in the hearts and minds of each member of the audience, making it clear not just that sea level rise is happening, but why it matters. Such is the power of a well-told story.
DRI scientists are recruiting fifteen Fallon residents with private wells to participate in a water quality study. All fifteen study participants will receive free water quality results, and a subset of the well owners will receive water filtration systems. The research will be used to identify the spatial extent and potential sources of contaminants such as pesticides, microplastics, and flame retardants and quantify the efficacy of treatment systems to reduce concentrations in drinking water.
DRI’s STEM Education Program has received a grant from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management to support Nevada’s clean energy workforce pipeline. The nearly $2 million in funding will be used to prepare the next generation with the knowledge and technical skills needed for employment in fields such as clean energy, waste management, and environmental remediation.
Guo Yu, assistant research professor of hydrometeorology, along with collaborator Luke McGuire from the University of Arizona, received a three-year grant from the USGS Water Resources Research Act Program. The funding will be used to expand his work examining how repeated wildfires impact flooding risk in communities.