Experts say the Colorado River's inability to complete its journey from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea of Cortez has become one of its defining characteristics. Its historic delta, a haven for birds and mammals in the Sonoran desert, is a husk of its former self. "About 90 percent of the water is retained on the U.S. side and it's used and diverted," said Karl Flessa, a professor of geosciences at the UA. "In effect, one of the things we've done historically – not meaning to especially – what we've done is export some of the environmental consequences of water diversions.
With an unparalleled network of environmental monitoring stations, research field sites, data, and interdisciplinary scientists, the UA is pioneering use-inspired ecosystem research that helps manage and conserve the lands, forests, oceans, landscapes, and wildlife of the western U.S. and beyond for those who enjoy and depend upon them.
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Byron Kominek, owner of Jack's Community Solar Garden, is collaborating with researchers from Colorado State University, the UA and the National Renewable Energy Lab to grow crops and keep beehives below solar panels, measuring whether the shadows the panels provide are helpful to the vegetation and insects.
On Feb. 14, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that El Niño officially arrived. Information from the UA's Climate Assessment for the Southwest's website is used to explain shifting jet stream patterns.
From San Diego County to Texas' Rio Grande Valley, citizen-scientists deployed to 20 border-area sites for the second annual Border BioBlitz, a two-day volunteer effort to record as many species of flora and fauna as possible along roughly one-kilometer stretches on each side of the U.S.-Mexico line. Taylor Edwards, an associate staff scientist at the UA, and Anthony Mendoza, a researcher at the UA herbarium, are quoted.
A 2016 study found that more than 450 plants and animals have undergone local extinctions due to climate change. If nothing is done, these species face the risk of becoming extinct at the global level. "If global warming continues, species that cannot change or move quickly enough may go globally extinct," said John Wiens, a researcher at the UA and the study's lead author.