water

Wallace Stegner Center: Utah Water and the Great Salt Lake

May 18, 2023

Our colleagues at the Wallace Stegner Center for the Environment in the S.J. Quinney College of Law hosted events this past year focusing on Utah water, including the serious decline of the Great Salt Lake.

The Stegner Center’s 28th annual symposium was themed “The Future of the Great Salt Lake”.

One of the world’s largest hypersaline lakes, the Great Salt Lake is on the verge of collapse due to climate change, drought, and population pressures that have reduced inflows and shrunk the lake by more than two-thirds. The Great Salt Lake has lately captured considerable media attention, not only locally, but nationally and internationally. Given its unique nature, the shrinking lake presents grave risks to human health—referred to by the New York Times as “Utah’s environmental nuclear bomb”—linked to toxic dust clouds blowing shoreward from a desiccated lakebed.

 

Leading up to the symposium, the Center’s Utah Water Lecture Series explored Utah water law, issues and challenges facing the Colorado River, and more. The lectures are posted online on the S.J. Quinney College of Law YouTube channel.

The lecture series includes:

Seminars Addressing Environmental Equity and Justice

March 16, 2022

The GCSC Seminar Series has featured a number of speakers whose research and scholarship address issues related to equity, justice, and the environment. Log in to Canvas with your U of U network ID to view these seminars.

Aradhna Tripati, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA. February 26, 2019, ″Frontiers in the study of past climate and environmental change: From new tracers to piloting a new inclusive science model”  Read more.

David Pellow, Environmental Studies, Global Environmental Justice Project, UC Santa Barbara. April 16, 2019, ″Toward a Critical Environmental Justice: Exploring State Violence and the Settler Colonial Conflicts” Read more.

Jeff Rose, University of Utah Parks, Recreation, and Tourism. November 5, 2019 “Homelessness, Political Ecology, and Critical Sustainability”
A critical spatial approach to unsheltered homelessness positions it as both a social and environmental justice concern that confronts common understandings of sustainability.  

Elizabeth Kronk Warner, Dean, S.J. Quincy College of Law. January 14, 2020, “Tribal Environmental Law”  Read more.

Julie Sze, Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. September 22, 2020 “Interdisciplinarity, Intersectionality and Environmental Justice: The Time is Now ”
What role can colleges and universities in particular, and specific fields (sustainability, environmental policy, etc.)  play in addressing climate and other crises?   

Daniel Mendoza, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah. October 13, 2020, “The confluence of air quality, urban development, health, and social justice”  Read more.

Liliana Caughman, Faculty, Native Environmental Science, Northwest Indian College. April 13, 2021, “From Climate Action to Climate Justice: How scenarios, partnerships, and community priorities are driving equitable urban sustainability and resilience planning in Portland, Oregon”  Read more.

Stacy Harwood, City and Metropolitan Planning, University of Utah. September 14, 2021, “Everyday Racism in Integrated Spaces”
Many college campuses promote themselves as integrated multicultural spaces where students from diverse backgrounds live, study, and play together in unity. This study reveals that many students of color experience racial hostility and exclusion in their daily routines.  

Heather Tanana, College of Law, University of Utah. October 19, 2021, “Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities”
 Lack of clean water access in tribal communities threatens public health and economic growth.  Read more.

Faculty recognized for critical research efforts during the pandemic

April 13, 2021

These GCSC faculty affiliates were recognized for their efforts on critical health and social justice issues brought on, or exacerbated by, the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

The following is excerpted from a story by Rebecca Walsh in At the U.

Some of the best long-term, basic research is often made immediately relevant by current events.

The COVID-19 pandemic and social justice disparities have transformed everything from the way Americans buy groceries to how we work and play. University of Utah faculty are responding with innovative projects that explore virus transmission, unequal access to healthcare, and how members of our community talk about their lives during a time when the country faces critical social issues.

With those forces in mind, University of Utah Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Dan Reed has named a new cohort of Banner Project recipients—nearly two dozen researchers, teachers and librarians who are working to generate new knowledge and document this extraordinary time in human history.

“The faculty members working on these projects deserve recognition for taking on some of the thorniest problems facing our society,” Reed said. “This scholarly work will help us improve COVID-19 treatments; weather this global health crisis; expand access to health care; and bridge the social, economic and racial differences that divide us.”

The Banner Project recognizes mid-career faculty who are intellectual and thought leaders, not only at the U, but also in the community. “The goal is to put faces to the world-class scholarship, groundbreaking discoveries, unique innovations and creative works generated by our scholars,” Reed added.

Exploring Environmental Change in Cataract Canyon

October 30, 2019

An interdisciplinary cohort of GCSC faculty joined government researchers and community partners over Fall Break for a week-long trip down the Colorado River to explore environmental change in Cataract Canyon.  It was an exceptional immersive week integrating geology, hydrology, ecology, art, philosophy, history, policy, education, recreation, and more in Utah’s spectacular wilderness redrock river landscape.

The goals of this field trip included discussing research and educational opportunities along Cataract Canyon, exploring use of the river as an experiential classroom, promoting awareness of Colorado River issues, and collecting data that catalogues the dramatic changes occurring in Cataract Canyon.

Lake Powell flooded Glen Canyon and half of Cataract Canyon at its maximum elevation. Since 2000, lake elevation dropped 120 ft due to a complex combination of water management, drought and climate change. Low lake elevation has cascading effects, including the reemergence of rapids, the re-establishment of riparian ecosystems, and changes in sediment deposition. One goal of the trip is to help catalog ongoing environmental changes by developing repeatable measurements of change.

UU faculty and researcher participants included Wendy Wischer (Art & Art History), Bill Brazelton and Susan Bush (Biology), Sarah Hinners (City & Metropolitan Planning),  Lauren Barth-Cohen (Education), Jennifer Follstad Shah (Geography), Danya Rumore (Law), and Brenda Bowen and Pete Lippert (Geology & Geophysics).

 

researcher with instrument on canyon river bank researchers standing and crouching to survey rocky desert canyon landscape three researchers on canyon riverside looking at something in the distance

Follstad Shah’s contribution to global project on river ecology

January 31, 2019

GCSC faculty affiliate Jennifer Follstad Shah, assistant professor in the Environmental & Sustainability Studies program and research assistant professor in geography, joined with researchers from 40 countries in an effort to better understand how climate effects river ecosystems. Read about the massive project in U News.