Zoom
— September 24, 2021
Join us on September 24th at 3:30 pm to hear Kim Eichhorst from Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP) present:
"Using Community Science Data to Inform Management Decisions on the Rio Grande"
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/98660993666
Abstract: The Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP) combines long-term ecological research with outdoor science education and outreach by involving K-12 students and their teachers in monitoring key indicators of structural and functional change in the Middle Rio Grande riparian forest, or “bosque.” BEMP began in 1996 as a part of an NSF Informal Science Education supplement and was set up as a partnership between the University of New Mexico’s Department of Biology and Bosque School. Starting with fewer than 200 participants in its first year, BEMP now averages approximately 9000 participants annually. BEMP findings derived from student-gathered data are used by government agencies to help inform multi-million dollar river and riparian management decisions. BEMP studies the ecological drivers of fire, flooding, climate change, and human alteration on the bosque ecosystem along 350 miles of the Rio Grande.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Kim Eichhorst is BEMP’s Science and Research Director and serves as a Research Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Kim started bosque research in 1995 as a grad student working with Dr. Cliff Crawford (BEMP’s co-founder) on the interaction between herbivores, cottonwoods, and pollution in urban and rural areas. She has worked for BEMP since its beginning and loves studying the intricacies of bosque ecology. In recent years, Kim has focused more on understanding and predicting how the riverside ecosystem will respond to the variability of climate change, including reduced water availability, and shifts in management. Kim enjoys spending time with her kids and critters, exploring the outdoors, doing art, and adopting too many hobbies.
This is the ninth presentation for the Aquifer Mapping Program 2021 Seminar Series: