Project Title: The Transborder Watershed Research Program

SCERP Project Number: D-1

Principal Investigator: Ward Brady

Task Manager's affiliation: Arizona State University

Goal: This project will focus on the Tijuana and San Pedro watersheds to integrate existing information into a larger land use model that will investigate the interdependencies and feedback mechanisms among ecological, economic, social, and political factors influencing land use.

This research will characterize the distribution and intensity of land use in each watershed and develop models to describe the interrelationships between land use patterns and ecological and human factors. Patterns of land use will be documented using maps, planning documents, aerial photographs, and satellite imagery to generate a GIS-based record of recent land use change.

Several types of modeling activities will be undertaken. For the San Pedro Watershed, a hierarchically structured, patch dynamic, watershed model will be developed. This model will be spatially explicit and use grid-based, remotely sensed data as well as integrated ecological and socio-economic data. For the Tijuana Watershed, a similar GIS-linked model will be developed that, when coupled to an emperically-based runoff model, will serve to both manage the spatial and temporal datasets and predict pollutant loading to the estuarine ecosystem. For both watersheds, the following land use characteristics will be described for each patch type: 1) social and economic factors, 2) surface and subsurface water flow, 3) point-source and non-point-source pollution, 4) biodiversity, and 5) other activities such as fuel combustion that gives rise to air pollution, which in turn impacts water quality.

The overall goal of the transborder watershed program is to provide information for decision makers that will aid in policy formation and adaptive management aimed at sustainable ecological and human health in the two basins. A major product of this project will be an atlas of the Tijuana River Watershed.

In progress.

Last updated 5/6/99