Kaitlyn Bishay and Santiago Ramírez Núñez, graduate students specializing in hydrology water resources and environmental fluid mechanics at the University of Colorado Boulder, participated on a student panel during the 12th annual Upper Colorado River 2023 Water Forum on Oct. 30, 2023. The event was hosted by the Hutchins Water Center at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, and the panel was introduced by John Marshall, the university's president.  

This year’s forum theme, "Reshaping the River: Reimagining Water Use & Management in the Upper Colorado River Basin," included topics such as innovative agricultural water management practices, resilient riverscapes, unpacking and understanding diminishing water supplies, reauthorization of recovery programs as well as updates from state agencies and networking events. 

The forum seeks to promote dialogue between scholars, policymakers and water users on how to address the water challenges facing the Upper Colorado River Basin.  The audience was comprised of water and river professionals, scholars and stakeholders from a wide spectrum of disciplines with a shared interest in the Upper Colorado River Basin.

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CIRES Fellow and WWA Director Ben Livneh was announced as American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) 2022 Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award recipient. Being selected as a Section Honoree is bestowed upon individuals for meritorious work or service toward the advancement and promotion of discovery and solution science. AGU, a nonprofit organization that supports 130,000 enthusiasts to experts worldwide in Earth and space sciences, annually recognizes a select number of individuals as part of its Honors and Recognition program.  

Livneh is recognized by the global Earth and space sciences community for his tremendous personal sacrifices and selfless dedication to advancing Earth and space sciences.  Livneh's nominator, CIRES Fellow and CU Boulder Professor Balaji Rajagopalan, described Livneh's research as fundamental to advancing our understanding of hydrologic processes and drought. Rajagopalan also highlighted Livneh's remarkable productivity, his passion for teaching and mentoring students and his humility.

AGU will formally recognize this year’s recipients during #AGU22 Fall Meeting, 12-16 December 2022 in Chicago, IL and online everywhere. This celebration is a chance for AGU’s community to recognize the outstanding work of our colleagues and be inspired by their accomplishments and stories.  

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From figuring out where memories are stored to how sensory information translates to behavior, new technologies are helping neuroscientists better understand how the brain works. Hear from several experts, including CU Professor John Crimaldi, on The Conversation.

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Ben Livneh was interviewed by Denver 9News for a piece focusing flash flooding over the Cameron Peak Fire burn scar.

The floods caused serious damage in the Glen Haven, Crystal Mountain and Buckhorn areas of Larimer County. 

Livneh is an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is an expert in the impacts of changing land cover and climate on water resources.

In the piece, he discusses the increased risk of flooding in communities for years following wildfire damage.

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When Western wildfires break out, water may first come to mind as a critical resource for helping extinguish it. But what about after the flames finish?

A 2022 CU study on the growing impact of wildfire on the Western U.S. water supply found that large forest fires can significantly increase the amount of water in surrounding streams and rivers up to six years after a fire, impacting regional water supplies and increasing risks for floods and landslides. The results suggest that water and natural hazard management will need to be more prepared for wildfire impacts. U.S. wildfires — — are only projected to escalate.

“It is something organizations need to educate fire-prone communities about, so we can be prepared for short- and long-term impacts.”

“We’re likely going to see a lot more fires,” said Ben Livneh, co-author of the study and assistant professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering. “Like we saw with [Boulder County’s] NCAR and Marshall fires, this is going to be a clear and present danger.”

Historically, forest-based streams and rivers increased in predictable amounts in response to rain or snowfall. However, from 1970 to 2021, those amounts declined due to warming and evaporation.

Wildfire adds another layer to the equation.

“When you bring so much fire into the mix, it fundamentally alters that relationship,” said Livneh, who also serves as director of the and is a fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).

The study examined 35 years of data from 179 forest basins in the Western U.S. between 1984 and 2019, including 72 sites where at least one large wildfire occurred. In areas where 20% or more of the forest burned, area streamflow was 30% greater than expected, for an average of six years post-fire.

It’s the first paper to show this increase persists in all four seasons after a fire, in all manner of vegetation, topography and elevation.

This water surplus could in part be a good thing, given the overall decline in the past 40 years. But it also comes with elevated landslide risks and a need for Western communities to invest in a greater diversity of water sources, as ash-laden water is low quality and expensive to treat, according to Livneh.

Due to the uncertainty of where or when future forests will burn, wildfire is not currently factored into assessments of the effects of climate change on Western U.S. streamflow.

“It is something organizations need to educate fire-prone communities about, so we can be prepared for short- and long-term impacts,” said Livneh.

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The Journal of Water �ƹ���Ƶ Planning and Management is recognizing a CU Boulder faculty member and a master's graduate for their research into the impact of reclaimed water consumption on rivers.

Associate Professor Joseph Kasprzyk and Brendan Purcell (CivEngr MS'19) are sharing a 2022 Best Policy Oriented Paper Award from JWRPM with Ashlynn S. Stillwell and Zachary A. Barkjohn from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The four co-authored the work which evaluated the statistical significance of streamflow alteration from the utilization of reclaimed water. The paper was published in the May 2021 issue of JWRPM.

Congratulations!

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CU Boulder is leading a groundbreaking new international research network dubbed  The work is aimed at understanding how animals use information from odors in their environment to guide behavior and has far-ranging implications for our understanding of the human brain. The research is part of the Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience (NeuroNex) Program. And over the next five years 16 scientists from 16 prestigious institutions around the world will work together through the network. The project is funded by a $20.2 million joint award from the National Science Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the UK Research and Innovation Medical Research Council.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4dZSXefJaE&list=PLGVe6BxyFHNXjnQVsj-SxybENHzJ3Azhw&index=30]

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Professor Roseanna Neupauer has been awarded the Margaret S. Petersen award for her work in hydrology and groundwater systems.

The honor is for “pioneering development and dissemination of engaging and effective pedagogy, inspiring and dedicated mentorship, impactful research in modeling of groundwater systems, and tireless leadership in the water resources education and engineering communities” as stated in the congratulatory email.

Neupauer recalls receiving this email late at night on January 13.

“I just thought before I go to bed I would check my email and the subject was ‘ASCE congratulates you on your award’,” Neupauer said. “I saw the subject and I was pretty sure what it was for. But when I opened it up and read it, it was really exciting to me.”

Neupauer currently teaches groundwater, hydraulics and groundwater modeling civil engineering courses. Her research includes finding ways to improve remediation of contaminated groundwater, studying arctic groundwater, well water research and geothermal energy systems.

“Water is really one of the most critical aspects of human life,” Neupauer said. “We often take it for granted,” Neupauer said. “We should appreciate that we have enough water right now for our needs, but recognize that we have to take care of it. We can’t waste it and we have to be prepared for times when we might not have it.”

The award was created in honor of Margaret Petersen, a pathfinder in the field of hydraulics and water resource engineering. The award specifically recognizes women who have exhibited exemplary service to the water resources and environmental science and engineering community and who are members of the American Society of Civil Engineers or Environmental and Water Resource Institute.

The award may be made annually. Neupauer is the ninth recipient of the award after it was first established in 2011.

“Some of the early winners were really well known hydrologists that have made lots of contributions to the field,” Neupauer said. “It’s humbling to be in the company of those few.”

Neupauer acknowledged the support and encouragement of colleagues Amy Chan Hilton and Teresa Culver for nominating her for the award. Her nomination was supported by letters of recommendation by Professor and Department Chair Balaji Rajagopalan, Professor JoAnn Silverstein and Professor Joe Kasprzyk, as well as former students Jack Greene and Amy Piscopo.

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A dog raises its nose in the air before chasing after a scent. A mosquito zigzags back and forth before it lands on your arm for its next meal. What these behaviors have in common is that they help these animals “see” their world through their noses.

While humans primarily use their vision to navigate their environment, the vast majority of organisms on Earth communicate and experience the world through – their sense of smell.

, an international network of over 50 scientists and students using olfaction to study brain function in animals. Our goal is to understand a fundamental question in neuroscience: How do animal brains translate information from their environments to changes in their behaviors?

Here, we trace the interconnections between smells and behaviors – looking at how behavior influences odor detection, how the brain processes sensory information from smells and how this information triggers new behaviors.

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Detecting odors in the environment

When the odor of a flower is released into the air, it takes the shape of a wind-borne . It encounters physical obstacles and temperature differences as it flows through space. These interactions create turbulence that splits the odor plume into thin threads that spread out as the scent moves away from its source. These filaments eventually reach an animal’s nose or an insect’s antenna.

Odors that are broken up into filaments present a challenge to animals using them to find food or mates or avoid threats. It becomes difficult to predict precisely where the odor is coming from. Is the source directly ahead, to the left or right, above or below?

To work around this, animals have evolved what are called behaviors that improve their ability to detect and find odors in the environment.

When a fly detects the smell of fruit or a mosquito detects carbon dioxide from a possible host, for example, both insects first move upwind to get closer to the odor of the food source. They then move in a meandering, back-and-forth motion called casting to find more odor threads before surging upwind again. If they lose the scent, they’ll start casting again until they find the scent. Larger animals, such as mice and dogs, also alternate between more directed movements and more exploratory searching actions.

Animals also move their noses and antennae to improve the chances that they’ll encounter an odor. This is why dogs raise their noses in the air to increase the amount of odor they can sniff, and why insects move their antennae to stir up and penetrate the air to make better contact with odor molecules.

Once information from odors tell the animal that they’re close to the source, visual searching then comes into play.

Making sense of odors

When an animal comes into contact with an odor plume, it detects the presence of these odor molecules through tiny proteins called . These receptors are embedded in the sensory neurons lining its nasal cavity or antennae.

Each sensory neuron contains only one type of odorant receptor. And each type of odorant receptor has a different shape and set of chemical properties that determine which odors can bind to and activate it. Most of these receptors recognize multiple odors, and most odors can bind to multiple different receptors. What encodes the identity of a specific odor in the brain is determined by which combination of receptors are activated, and their relative strength of activation.

An animal like a mouse has about a of odorant receptors. Having a large number of these receptors with diverse shapes allows the system to detect and distinguish between a very large number of chemically unique odors, including ones the animal has never encountered before. Most odors in the environment are often a mix of many different types of molecules. The smell of some can be a blend of over 100 different chemical compounds.

Once an odor molecule binds to a receptor, sensory neurons send specific into compartments of the brain called . Different odors elicit distinct patterns of electrical activity across these regions, and this generates a specific neural representation of the odor in the brain.

An important step toward understanding olfaction is figuring out how different classes of odors map to different patterns of electrical signals in the brain.

Neuroscientists hypothesize that as these signals undergo successive stages of processing deep in the brain, sensory representations of odor are in ways that extract information most useful to survival. This could be whether the smell is coming from something nutritious, indicating a potential source of food, or it could help the animal identify whether the smell is coming from a potential competitor or predator.

These reformatted sensory representations form the basis for how animals perceive smell and determine what actions they take in response to this information.

From odor to action

Once information about a particular odor reaches the brain, it often elicits both instinctual and learned . Odors that signal danger may trigger the animal to freeze or run away, while odors from a member of the same species may trigger the animal to mark its territory or initiate courtship.

In many cases, animals perform these tasks with incredible . It’s still common to use search dogs to find lost people and pigs to find truffles because available technologies aren’t capable of performing as well.

Animals achieve this level of performance not just because they’re able to detect and identify an odor. They’re also able to integrate odor features, like how intense the odor smells, with environmental clues, like wind direction, and internal cues, like hunger. All this information comes together to generate specific sequences of behaviors such as “face into the wind and then walk forward.”

To understand how odor guides these behaviors, scientists measure or manipulate an animal’s brain activity as they perform specific actions. This is done using imaging, electrophysiology or , which selectively activates specific neurons by shining a light on them. These approaches allow researchers to understand how patterns of brain activity shift when an animal changes its behavior to chase after an odor, or how environmental and internal cues combine to produce a best guess on the location of its next meal.

Leading science and technology by the nose

The olfactory system offers a unique opportunity to understand how the brain processes environmental information and translates it to behavior. Compared to other areas of the brain, the olfactory circuit is simpler in structure and uses fewer stages of processing. Its relative simplicity is what allows scientists like us to study it from end to end and learn how the brain works as a whole.

Understanding brain function through the lens of olfaction could also pave the way for transformative developments in engineering, neuroscience and public health. Our research should accelerate the development of robots with that can use odors to search for , and leaking from pipelines in environments where it may be tedious or dangerous for humans or animals to go. Robots might also be able to search for missing people or disaster victims, something typically done with .

An exciting future in scientific and medical development, we believe, is right under our noses.

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9NEWS explored climate change solutions with Colorado experts at a town hall on Wednesday.

The town hall included topics like weather, water, wildfires and what we can do to protect our planet.

The panelists were:

• Becky Bolinger, assistant state climatologist for the ,
• Ben Livneh, director of , and
• Ean Tafoya, Colorado field advocate for .

All this month, 9NEWS is talking about climate change and how it affects everything we do: from wildfires to energy to our food supply to drought.

Because of warming and drought, reservoirs on the Colorado River like Lake Powell are at their lowest level in years. Millions of people in Western states rely on the Colorado River for their water.

We're also talking about wildfires and what Colorado's forests will look like for years to come after last year's fires.

Researchers are studying the trends of warmer, drier weather in the state and the impact they could have on forest recovery. 

Researchers say finding alternative energy sources is one solution to lower temperatures and control wildfire, but it could be years before we see the impact of those changes.

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