WyCEHG Discussion

Many of the most pressing issues facing the western United States hinge on the fate and transport of water and its response to diverse disturbances, including climate change, bark beetle infestations, and energy extraction. A grand challenge for water resources management is to optimize water allocation among stakeholders in the face of increasing stress on the resource. To meet this challenge, managers need scientific advances that reduce longstanding uncertainties in understanding water pathways. The Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics (WyCEHG) at the University of Wyoming was established in 2012 as a center of excellence in environmental geophysics and hydrology that provides cutting-edge knowledge and tools to water resource managers and scientists in the public and private sectors. This multidisciplinary center encompasses new physical and intellectual infrastructure that enables a comprehensive research program linking surface and subsurface watershed hydrology, geophysics, remote sensing, and computational modeling. We will discuss ongoing WyCEHG research projects around Wyoming and the U.S., including snow GPR to measure snow water equivalent, topographic and regional stress controls on near surface fracturing, geophysical imaging studies to aide permeability pathway modeling, and combined borehole/surface geophysics for municipal aquifer management.