Ivet Escamilla and Lillian Cartino lead a high school student research project with Durango High School as part of the GeoPaths Legends program. The students first visited the SEPHAS Lysimeters operated by the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Boulder City to learn about water balance and dynamics in arid soils. The field trip was followed up by a visit to the Geoscience Computer Lab at UNLV to simulate water infiltration in deserts soils for a wide range of meteorologic conditions and soil properties with the hydrologic modeling software HYDRUS-1D. The simulations were analyzed to better understand what controls the partitioning of rainfall into surface runoff and infiltration and why it is possible that we have flooding in arid areas like Las Vegas. On May 3, the students presented their findings at the Las Vegas Science and Technology Festival. Excellent job!
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
