Directors' Message

Welcome to the One Water Cluster

UTEP’s unique position on the US/Mexico border and in the northern portion of the Chihuahuan Desert provides many opportunities to undertake interdisciplinary projects that will lead to better understand our region’s pressing environmental challenges including water resource management, and to provide meaningful solutions to protect our environment for future generations. By working closely with academic institutions, local environmental agencies, environmental groups, and the community on both side of the border, we aim to increase UTEP’s role in determining the present and future conditions of our shared water resources.

 Solving the challenges of limited water resources in our region is of growing importance especially in the face of increasing population demands and climate change. Balancing human and natural ecosystem needs for high quality freshwater in a desert setting will take creative thinking. By building on our faculty’s extensive expertise in arid and semi-arid regions, we will build stronger partnerships, through grants and education, to catalyze innovative solutions to answer questions such as:

• What advances in water treatment and water conservation technologies are needed to manage future water supplies and demand, including public health issues such as emerging contaminants of concern?
• What advances in cyberinfrastructure, including sensor and network technologies, artificial intelligence for combining disparate data sources, optimizing water use in irrigation, and decision support systems, are needed to increase water use efficiency and support decision making?
• How is protection and restoration of water-based ecosystem services adequately represented in regions experiencing water scarcity?
• What is the future risk to water availability associated with disruptive forces, such as climate change, migration, trade, energy prices, and technological change?
• What are perceptions of water users of risks to water availability and how do perceptions influence individual water user and institutional decision-making?
• How do the arts and humanities affect realizations of personal connections to water, engage communities in water decision-making, build bridges across water stakeholders, and inspire new thinking about water solutions? 

We look forward to working with you to realize these goals and to develop the One Water Cluster as the hub for science-based resource management in desert and world regions. 

Alex Mayer, PhD and Liz Walsh, PhD

 One Water Cluster Co-Directors