Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (EMA)
The EMA subproject is focusing on improving fundamental understanding of scale-dependent behavior of water and air pollutants including heavy metals, pesticides, and air pollutants within a shared multimedia environment in semi-arid lands and shorelines by collecting high-quality environmental monitoring data and providing subsequent comprehensive assessment.
Specific objectives are to:
- identify key environmental stressors;
- systematically investigate underlying physicochemical and biological processes impairing air and water quality; and
- translate this knowledge into current environmental condition assessments and forecasts of natural resource management actions.
The chosen research topics supporting EMA objectives and addressing environmental sustainability issues are:
- assessment of the environmental impact of industrial waste, agricultural runoff, and traffic emissions in the Middle Rio Grande Region along the U.S.-Mexico border;
- assessment of sources, transport and transformation of environmental stressors in the Corpus Christi Port area; and
- assessment of the environmental impacts of desalination concentrate discharges to coastal surface waters in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
The EMA research will provide a solid foundation for science based decision making and contribute significantly to sustainable infrastructure development in South Texas.
© 2012, CREST - RESSACA
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. HRD-0734850
This page was last updated on: August 13, 2012