Austral Weeks

What did I do in Chile? Here are some things! 1. Installed weather stations in the 'impacted' and 'reference' watersheds at Coyhaique Alto, Aysén:  Here are thorough discussions of the installation of the stations and the observed differences between the sites. I determined that meteorology only partially explains the observed differences in streamflow in these two watersheds. Differences in the soil stratigraphy/layering, vegetation, underlying geology, and groundwater contributions likely play a large role in determining the seasonal patterns in streamflow. My collaborators will continue to maintain the stations at Coyhaique Alto and hopefully produce a 2-4 year record that can serve as the basis for a journal publication. 2. Developed an informal collaboration with a water manager at the Dirección General de Aguas :   We share an interest in using climate variables to inform streamflow allocations in a way that balances human consumption with ecological flows. ...

Finally time to head to the field! Our site is, fortuitously, not located in the rainy coastal mountains, but far inland towards the Argentinian pampas, and constitutes the headwaters of the Río Coyhaique that supplies the city’s water. The area is dominated by various forms of deforestation:  the initial burning to make room for sheep when the area was first settled in the middle of the 20th century, and then recent cutting to provide firewood for the city of Coyhaique . The drive is pure magic, rolling hills of golden grass radiating from soil hummocks, the rare wetlands host white swans, pink flamingos. It is deep autumn and the lengas ( nothofagus pumilio ) glow orange in the understory while the ñires ( nothofagus antarctica ) crown the canopy with fiery flecks of red. Day 1: We head into the deforested watershed and look for a site for the first weather station – we have two stations, one for this watershed and another for the native forest nearby. I pick a windswept s...

I am deep in the process of determining how I will use the next 8 months most efficiently in a way that will honor a number of different research priorities. The purpose of this post is to document these priorities in a way that will hopefully organize my own thoughts, and communicate to folks what exactly I'm doing down here in Aysén ! As both a Fulbright scholar and a human, I feel the need to do as much listening, observing, and learning as possible to understand what types of environmental problems exist in the Chilean Patagonia, so that our modeling can provide some useful or impactful information. This post is organized by: 1. past/current work in Colorado 2. future work in Colorado 3. work in Aysén  4. personal to-do list Where I've been:  So far, my academic research has focused on  aspect controls on hill slope hydrology.  What does this mean? The Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory's field site at Gordon Gulch, CO, USA is characterized by a ...

As the Fulbright project begins to take shape, I've been doing as much listening, observing, and learning as possible to understand what types of environmental problems exist in the Chilean Patagonia, so that our modeling can provide some useful or impactful information. (Maybe not a great way to do 'science' but I can't seem to separate myself from the emotional attachment to nature).  The most obvious issue in Coyhaique, Chile is air pollution , as the World Health Organization has identified .  As I speak to more Chileans, I have come to realize that this is not an isolated problem. The poor air quality is a symptom of a much larger political/economic dynamic: in neoliberal Chile, energy from diesel, gas, and electricity is 4, 5, and 6 times as expensive as energy from wood, respectively (Schueftan & Gonzalez, 2013), whereas in generally leftist Argentina, heavy subsidies make natural gas 10–20, 5-10, and 10-20 times cheaper than diesel, firewood, and electri...