REU Site: The Value of Snow: Summer Research Experiences in Natural Resource Issues in the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin Region

智力价值：环境学院REU项目使学生能够探索社会经济和自然科学的交叉，为内华达州内华达山脉东部地区的适应性流域管理提供信息，特别是在太浩湖盆地和周围的大盆地高地沙漠西北部。这项计划是先前美国国家科学基金会支持太浩湖-特鲁基河-金字塔湖分水岭研究的REU Site奖的延续；有关REU计划的信息可以在本科生研究网站(http://environment.unr.edu/undergraduateresearch/opportunities/reu.html).上找到目前的REU计划包括广泛的跨学科研究，这些研究考察了在该地区气候变化和积雪减少的背景下评估、建模和管理水资源的各种方法。研究组在“雪的价值”的背景下制定了总体研究主题，以促进广泛的社会经济和环境研究活动的结合，从太浩湖水质和入侵物种的岸带研究，到生境干扰(如采矿、能源开发、火灾、植被变化)对大盆地敏感物种关键栖息地的影响。学生将参与正在进行的研究，确定受积雪变化影响的社区和群体，考虑缓解战略和政策有助于适应的替代结果，并从生物物理和美元角度量化影响。这些研究项目位于一个生物多样性的地区，这是一个连接高沙漠和亚高山生态系统的独特地区。这些系统的融合为山地、沙漠和河岸生物群落提供了各种引人注目的研究机会。更广泛的影响：通过这种以团队为导向的研究体验，学生们获得了接触到各种科学调查和技术的机会，并了解了社会经济和自然科学如何在面对不断变化的经济和自然资源时为土地利用政策和适应性管理提供信息。更广泛地说，该项目让学生们接触到综合研究问题，这些问题将这些生态系统与更大的问题联系起来，比如降雪水平如何影响西部的水的可获得性、使用和保护。在数据收集和分析中使用的先进技术使学生能够在最先进的研究软件中获得经验。国家招收的学生研究这些技术如何影响知识的生产，同时完善他们的研究范围。该项目强调团队建设，创造积极的工作环境，以及学生在这些过程中所发挥的作用。因此，REU项目正在扩大学生对有效研究项目的理解和参与，同时也产生了对该领域做出有意义贡献的研究成果。这个REU网站项目成功地将学生、教师和自然资源管理者联系在一起，通过集体努力，旨在加强我们在应用研究背景下对区域分水岭的科学理解。

Intellectual Merit: The Academy for the Environment REU program enables students to explore the intersection of socioeconomic and natural sciences in ways that inform adaptive watershed management in the eastern Sierra Nevada region of Nevada, specifically within the Lake Tahoe Basin and the surrounding northwestern Great Basin high desert. This program is a continuation of a previous NSF REU Site award that supported research in the Lake Tahoe-Truckee River-Pyramid Lake watershed; information on that REU program can be found on the undergraduate research website (http://environment.unr.edu/undergraduateresearch/opportunities/reu.html). The current REU program encompasses a wide range of interdisciplinary research which examines various approaches to assessing, modeling, and managing water resources in the context of climate change and diminishing snowpack in the region. The research group has framed its overall research theme in the context of the "value of snow", in order to promote the integration of a wide range of socioeconomic and environmental research activities, ranging from shore zone studies of water quality and invasive species at Lake Tahoe, to the effects of habitat disturbance (e.g., mining, energy development, fire, vegetation change) on critical habitat for sensitive species in the Great Basin. Students are involved in on-going research that identifies communities and groups that are affected by changes in snowpack, consider alternative outcomes where mitigation strategies and policies assist in adaptation, and quantify impacts in biophysical as well as dollar terms. The research projects are situated within a biologically diverse region, a unique area that joins the high desert with subalpine ecological systems. This confluence of systems provides varied and compelling research opportunities in mountain, desert, and riparian biotic communities. Broader Impacts: Through this team-oriented research experience, students are gaining exposure to diverse scientific inquiries and technologies, and learning how the socioeconomic and natural sciences inform land use policy and adaptive management when faced with changing economic and natural resources. More broadly, the program exposes students to integrated research questions that connect these ecosystems to larger questions of how snow levels influence water availability, usage and conservation in the West. Advanced technologies used in data collection and analysis allow students to gain experience in state-of-the-art research software. Nationally-recruited students examine how these technologies influence the production of knowledge as they refine their scope of research. This program emphasizes team building, creating a positive work environment, and the role students play in these processes. As a result, the REU program is expanding student understanding of, and participation in, effective research programs while also producing research that makes meaningful contributions to the field. This REU Site project is successfully linking students, faculty, and natural resource managers through a collective effort aimed at enhancing our scientific understanding of regional watersheds in an applied research context.