Arizona Department of Environmental Quality

This scoping project explores opportunities for collaboration in the Arizona-Sonora portion of the U.S.-Mexico border region that emphasize environmental risks and air quality, small scale computing and technology, and citizen science monitoring of environmental phenomena. In fall 2018, Ben McMahan helped convene an environmental workshop to identify emergent areas of interest. This workshop led to a focus on solar heaters and their relevance to climate and air quality in the Nogales region. Another workshop is scheduled for the fall of 2019.

There are numerous avenues for collaborative research projects and outreach in the borderlands region, and this project provides a mechanism to develop new research and engagement, as well as to connect CLIMAS expertise to existing project work. Topics emphasize climate and health (environmental risks and air quality), small scale computing, technology, and citizen science monitoring of environmental phenomena, emergent CLIMAS specific outreach and network development, and small-scale solar feasibility.

This project emphasizes network development in the Sonora-Arizona border around environmental risks and air quality issues, small scale computing and technology, and small-scale solar feasibility. A possible outcome is to inform decisions about community solar prospects in Nogales, Sonora, such as a shared solar bank that multiple NGOs could use for power. Ongoing participation and presence are requisite parts of building and sustaining collaborative partnerships. The Covid-19 pause in travel shows how things begin to fade a little, although we are maintaining contact with the network through email, WhatsApp, and texting.

La EcoCasa en Nogales, Sonora website aggregates recent work on solar and sensor technology, as well as more than 10 years of previous work in this network of partners. It summarizes information about the feasibility and capacity for solar power in Nogales and the role of sensor technology in tracking environmental risks https://nogalesecocasa.arizona.edu/.

The Southwest is one of the most sensitive regions of the U.S. to climate change and variability. It is essential to understand the full scope of climate variability and change in the Southwest and how to communicate in ways that enable effective decision mak­ing. The goals of this project are to (1) lead efforts to communicate about climate variability and change to decision and policy makers in, and relevant to, the Southwest, and (2) make climate knowledge useful for stakeholder understanding and decision making.