CWES

Center for Watersheds and Environmental Sustainability

Picture by Jean Dixon

As aquatic environments and watersheds become increasingly stressed from anthropogenic impacts, including global climate change, their management for long-term sustainability will be fundamental to overall ecosystem health. Typical sustainability issues range from quantity and quality of water resources to enhanced management of forest health. The mission of the Center for Watersheds Environmental Sustainability (CWES) is to facilitate development of interdisciplinary (and interdivisional) research teams that address a variety of science issues important to policy decisions at the watershed scale. Information gained from these research programs will be disseminated to land managers and policy and regulatory decision makers to provide scientific guidance for appropriate policy development.

The vision of CWES is to develop innovative research programs that integrate the hydrologic, geologic, and atmospheric processes with water quality, nutrient dynamics, ecology, resource sustainability, and environmental policy. New strategies and approaches developed from these interdisciplinary research efforts will address significant questions and solve problems pertaining to watershed processes and restoration effectiveness. New research information will help to inform the planning and management policy processes for improved watershed sustainability.

CWES was created in 1999 as part of the Desert Research Institute’s (DRI) approach to interdisciplinary research. CWES has focused research programs in the Lake Tahoe and Walker Lake watersheds. Knowledge gained from these research programs is applicable to other watersheds throughout the western U.S. and the world, including the Truckee, Carson, and Humboldt River watersheds in the western U.S. and the Nabogo and Bani River watersheds in Ghana and Mali, West Africa, where CWES also has conducted and has ongoing research projects.