On February 12, the WRRC hosted Marty Ralph, Director, Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes and Researcher at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography to discuss Atmospheric River Science. Rivers of water vapor in the sky, which is how Dr. Ralph describes atmospheric rivers, are key to understanding the character of storm fronts and precipitation in the western United States. Forming at relatively low altitudes, and holding unusually large water loads as they move eastward over the Pacific Ocean, atmospheric rivers can be linked to extreme rainfall, causing flooding and providing water supply, when they make landfall. Ralph described the methods for studying these systems and provided data showing the importance of atmospheric rivers, when evaluating storm patterns in the desert southwest.
Brown Bag Page with PPT
On February 21, a team of researchers provided insights about a unique binational assessment of the transboundary San Pedro and Santa Cruz aquifers. James Callegary, Hydrologist, USGS Arizona Water Sciences Center, joined Jacob Petersen-Perlman, WRRC Research Analyst, and Elia Tapia, WRRC Graduate Research Assistant, in describing different aspects of the Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program (TAAP) in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. After Petersen-Perlman gave an overview of TAAP's 11-year history as a binational research activity and its goal of cross-border scientific cooperation, Callegary described the two binational reports that have resulted from this cooperation. His focus was on the types of science, such as gravity and electromagnetic methods, water chemistry analysis, geological mapping, and use of stable isotopes, employed to characterize the aquifers. Long-term, these efforts are aimed at developing numerical models to help understand the water resource. Tapia concluded the presentations with a description of the 67 binational maps created for TAAP. A great deal of effort by technical teams of Mexican and U.S. experts went into merging, harmonizing, and designing uniform maps of the study areas. Of all the maps, only the soil type map proved too difficult to integrate.
The seminar audience included two representatives from CONAGUA, Mexico's water management agency, and some discussion was translated between Spanish and English, testifying to the complications of bilingual science and report writing. The
Binational Study of the Transboundary San Pedro Aquifer was published last year after many rounds of review and revision in both languages. It is hoped that the Santa Cruz report will be completed by the end of 2018.
