Montgomery Prizes awarded at University of Arizona annual events

For the past several years, M&A has been pleased to present the Montgomery Prize to outstanding hydrology and geology students attending Arizona universities. The intent of the Montgomery Prize is to recognize student achievement in the area of oral presentation of research. A $1,000 cash award is given to each winner. The Montgomery Prize represents M&A’s commitment to promoting excellence in research and communication in the geosciences.

El Dia Del Aqua

The 2005 Montgomery Prize winner chosen at the El Dia del Agua symposium was Aleix Serrat-Capdevila, a Hydrology and Water Resources Ph.D. candidate. Leslie Katz of M&A presented the 2005 Montgomery Prizes to Aleix for his outstanding presentation entitled “An Alternative Approach to the Operation of Multinational Reservoir Systems: Application to the Amistad and Falcon Reservoir System (Lower Rio Grande/Rio Bravo).” Aleix’s work explores the use of Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SDP) algorithms in a dynamic modeling project between the United States and Mexico to better manage water resources in the Lower Rio Grande Basin.

The year 2005 marks the 15th Annual El Dia del Agua, sponsored by the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Arizona. The 1-day event serves as a research showcase for the department and features both oral and poster presentations. Held on March 3, 2005, the symposium was well attended by both students and members of the professional hydrology community at large.

An Alternative Approach to the Operation of Multinational Reservoir Systems: Application to the Amistad and Falcon Reservoir System (Lower Rio Grande/Rio Bravo)

Aleix Serrat-Capdevila and Juan B. Valdes

An optimization approach for the operation of international multi-reservoir systems is presented. The approach uses Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SDP) algorithms—both steady-state and real-time—to develop two models. In the first model, the reservoirs and flows of the system were aggregated to yield an equivalent reservoir, and the obtained operating policies were disaggregated for each reservoir and for each nation’s water balance. In the second model a multi-reservoir approach was followed, disaggregating for each country’s water share in each reservoir. The nonlinear algorithm employed for the disaggregation uses the stochastic operating policies as boundary conditions for a local time-step optimization. These models were applied to the Amistad-Falcon International Reservoir System as part of a dynamic modeling project between the United States and Mexico for a better management of the water resources in the Lower Rio Grande Basin, currently enduring a severe drought.

For more information about El Dia Del Aqua, visit www.hwr.arizona.edu.

GeoDaze

At Geodaze 2005, Jim Davis of M&A presented the 2005 Montgomery Prizes to Geosciences Ph.D. candidate, Nathan English, for his excellent presentation entitled, “Stable Isotopic Variations in Columnar Cacti: Are Responses to Climate Recorded in Spines?” Nathan’s research involves using isotopic oxygen values in the spines of columnar cacti as a record of recent climatological phenomena.

The GeoDaze symposium is an annual event organized for the last 33 years by students of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona. This year, GeoDaze was held at the University of Arizona on April 7–9, 2005, featuring 2 days of student-presented research and a field trip.

Stable Isotopic Variations in Columnar Cacti: Are Responses to Climate Recorded in Spines?

Nathan B. English , David Dettman , David G. Williams

The behavior of the North American monsoon (NAM), particularly with respect to times of continental drought and its relationship to the Pacific-North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), is of great interest to paleoclimatologists and water managers. Saguaro cacti (Carnegiea gigantea) and other columnar cacti in North and South America are long-lived and have the potential to record climate variability on land with high temporal and spatial resolution. The vertical sequence of spines on the saguaro's exterior represents a high resolution (4 to 6 per year), and long (over 150 years) record of environmental change.
We present results from an experiment where we tracked the oxygen isotopic values in the source waters, stem tissue waters and spine tissue for three treatments over the course of 5 months. We also present the rationale for a new method to determine the growth rate of columnar cacti using the radiocarbon bomb spike. Our measurements reveal that oxygen and hydrogen isotopic variation among sequentially produced and persistent spines covering the saguaro body record fluctuations in saguaro water balance.
The development and refinement of saguaro spines as climate records will serve as the basis for obtaining climate records from other species of columnar cacti in North and South America. The role of the tropics in global climate change is poorly understood and precise chronologies of tropical climate change are needed to place empirical constraints on competing theories and models. In particular, the use of continental records from columnar cacti from coastal and Altiplano South America could identify ENSO periods in the last century and provide empirical constraints on the inputs of Atlantic (monsoonal) versus Pacific (winter) moisture to the Altiplano during ENSO and other important climatological phenomena.

For more information about GeoDaze, visit www.geo.arizona.edu.

  
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