Research on Environmental Sustainability of Semi-Arid Coastal Areas (RESSACA)

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

Dr. Andrew Ernest, PI, Texas A&M University-Kingsville Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK) seeks NSF support for a CREST for Research on Environmental Sustainability of Semi-Arid Coastal Areas (RESSACA). The center will be organized around three core research subprojects thematically integrated: Environmental Systems Modeling (ESM), Environmental Informatics (EI), and Living Laboratories for Academics and Research (LLAR). LLAR will serve as the principal mechanism for transferring environmental sustainability research into other educational domains, both formal and informal, along the K-PhD continuum and to the public. The center will be located in Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering at TAMUK, for over a decade one of the top ten universities nationally in the production of Hispanic engineers at the baccalaureate level, graduating 72 in 2000. The department offers the only Ph.D. program in environmental engineering in South Texas and one of the few serving the 2,000 mile U.S./Mexico border. Dr. Andrew Ernest, Chair, Department of Environmental Engineering, and Director, South Texas Environmental Institute, will serve as PI. Serving predominately Hispanic South Texas and the border region for environmental sustainability research, RESSACA will provide, access for Hispanics to MS and PhD programs in environmental engineering, research/education integration, and research transfer to the public policy decision makers and stakeholders engaged in development of economic, social, and physical infrastructures necessitated by the dramatic growth related to NAFTA. Partners include Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M International University (Laredo), University of Texas-El Paso, University of Texas (UT)-Pan American, and UT-Brownsville. RESSACA will be a major research partner with institutions along both sides of the U.S./Mexico border on sustainability research to establish a more integrative and connected research enterprise in semi-arid coastal zones along the entire U.S./Mexico border, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. Partnerships have been established with three major NSF funded initiatives with research capacities aligned with this objective: Science and Technology Center for Sustainable Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas at the University of Arizona (Dr. Soroosh Sorooshian, Director); Center for Environmental Analysis of the California State University, Los Angeles (Dr. Carlos Robles, Director); and San Diego Supercomputer Center, Dr. David Stockwell, Head of The Bioinformatics And Biodiversity Program. Dr. Felipe Rubio Castillo, Deputy Director, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACyT), National Council of Science and Technology Research of Mexico, has agreed to serve on the centers External Advisory Group to advance binational research partnerships. The research subprojects and strategically aligned research partnerships will enable TAMUK to achieve national competitiveness in sustainability research and become a top producer nationally of Hispanics earning the PhD in environmental engineering. NSF support will allow the development of a critical core infrastructure at TAMUK and in South Texas that will foster fundamental research and development for promoting the concepts of sustainability of ecological and environmental systems in the semi-arid coastal areas of South Texas. These border research issues of sustainability of systems and the related technology development and transfer and knowledge transfer into the intersections of technical, economic, and social systems are of national importance. They provide a critical context in which NSF funding under CREST can serve as a dynamic catalyst to advance both our national research capacity and capacity to address the significant underrepresentation of Hispanics at the PhD level in these nationally important sustainability disciplines.