Wilson Chairs Workshop on National Water Research Issues

SOCORRO, N.M., Sept. 23, 2004 -- Dr. John Wilson, professor of hydrology in New Mexico Tech's Department of Earth and Environmental Science (EES), co-chaired a joint National Science Foundation - Department of Energy (NSF-DOE) workshop on "Water: Challenges at the Intersection of Human and Natural Systems," held during the week of September 20 in Richland, Washington.

The workshop took at the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, located on the campus of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

It brought together fifty science leaders from NSF, DOE, national labs, academia, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to identify critical gaps in knowledge, discuss innovative research ideas, and identify central interdisciplinary themes that could shape a new national research program on water as a complex environmental system.

Wilson and the workshop steering committee are writing up the workshop's findings, which will be submitted in October to the NSF Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education (ACERE). They formulate advice to NSF on how to advance the research, education, and infrastructure vision described in the report "Complex Environmental Systems" (http://www.nsf.gov/geo/ere/ereweb/ac-ere/acere_synthesis_rpt_full.pdf ).

Also attending from Tech was Professor Enrique Vivoni of EES.

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