No records
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Ben Wilder |
2018 |
Cuentame Más: Understanding the Tucson Community Through Tumamoc Hill |
Diversity
outreach
art/science
science communication
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Tumamoc Hill is at the center of the Tucson community. The themes encompassed by this site touch on nearly every discipline, from history and indigenous studies, to ecology and a fantastic display of public health in action. This site has a history of over one-hundred years of scientific and four-thousand years of human use. Tumamoc Hill has recently opened to visitors during daytime hours, and it receives about 1,500 hundred visitors a day-- likely the most use the Hill has received in its history. This project extends an existing collaboration between the Confluencecenter and the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill as the Tumamoc Transdisciplinary Arts Program launches in the fall of 2017 to explore, understand, document, and share the stories and richness of Tumamoc Hill in new ways, focusing on the arts and sciences. Cuentame Más celebrates a collaboration between the arts and humanities through harvesting the stories of the community centered around Tumamoc, in the latest chapter of Cemamagi Du’ag, the “hill of the horned lizard.”
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Mark Brusseau |
2017 |
Conceptual Site Model and Framework for Assessing Contaminant Transport and Exposure Risks. Phase 2 |
SCM
contaminant transport
risk assessment
exposition pathways
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The Rosemont Copper Project is a proposed open-pit mine located in Pima County, Arizona, with an estimated operational life of 20-25 years. Copper, and to a lesser extent molybdenum and silver are the metals of interest. During this project, approximately 546 million tons (Mt) of sulfide ore and approximately 70 Mt of oxide ore will be processed. In this process, approximately 1,232 Mt of waste rock will be produced (Tetra Tech, 2012a). The site selected for the mine resides within a sensitive region of the Santa Cruz watershed, near headwaters for tributaries. Furthermore, the Cienega Creek and Davidson Canyon are natural preserves that supply water to the Tucson Basin and host several species, such as aquatic and riparian plants and animals (Powell et al., 2014). Past mining operations in Arizona were always associated with negative impacts on the environment, both during mining and post-mining (Earthworks, 2012), with acid mine drainage and airborne particles from smelter emissions and wind erosion of mine tailings. In addition, potential human-health risks are associated with these impacts. Modern mine development requires a robust assessment of environmental and human-health impacts. The goal of this work is to identify contaminant sources and contaminants of concern, as well as to delineate their potential release mechanisms and transport pathways. |
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Monica Ramirez |
2017 |
Democratizing Science: Developing Tools to Effectively Evaluate Co-Created Citizen Science Efforts in Rural Mining Towns |
Citizen science
Community-engaged research
Impacts
Resource extraction activities
Outcomes
Evaluation
Public participation in scientific research
Volunteer monitoring
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To date, only a limited number of co-created citizen science (CS) projects where community members are involved in most or all steps of the scientific process have been, and even less in conjunction with risk communication. Concomitantly, there is a dire need to assess and standardize the evaluation of CS programs. Using a mixed method approach and combining quantitative and qualitative assessment tools, this project will evaluate potential differences in knowledge of contaminate fate and transport and environmental pollution and understanding of governmental environmental policy and regulations, as well as internal and external motivations and self-efficacy for environmental action and learning and performing science. This information is critical to move citizen science efforts forward and to determine whether such a project co- produces environmental monitoring, exposure assessment, and risk data in a form that will be directly relevant to the participant's lives and increases the community’s involvement in environmental decision- making. |
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Franck Poupeau |
2017 |
Evaluation of drought impacts on ecosystems in Pima County (Arizona): a collaborative research process and an open science perspective |
Open Science
Collaborative Research
Drought impact assessment
Ecosystems
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Ce projet vise à développer une recherche collaborative en matière d'impact écologique de la sécheresse sur la zone du Pima County. Il s'inscrit dans les perspectives d'Open Science lancées dans Horizon2020, auxquelles il entend répondre en construisant et mobilisant un réseaux de chercheurs nationaux (USA° et internationaux pour travailler avec les stakeholders locaux. |
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No records
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Bhuwan Thapa |
2018 |
Implications of Rosemont Copper Mine on medium- and long-term water balance in Arizona: Dynamic modeling under different climate and economic scenarios |
water balance
dynamic modeling
Rosemont Mine
long-term water demand
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The operation of large mines, such as Rosemont Mine, in water scarce region of Arizona has the potential to alter the water demand and supply in the region. While Rosemont Copper has been permitted by the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) to pump up to 6,000 acre-feet of water per year, there are multiple conflicting factors that concerns the long-term water balance in the region with the construction of the Rosemont mine. Already, the other large mines in that region, mainly the Sierrita and Mission mines, have pumped between 18,299 and 28,492 acre-feet from 2000 to 2008. The mining company argue that will replace the aquifer water with Central Arizona Project (CAP) water, however, they have not secured CAP guarantee for the full life of the mine. In addition, though the Rosemont mine proposes to have small water footprint compared to other mining operations in the country, when we consider the water demand at the system level (watershed level or sub-basin level) the large industry (including all the big mining industries in the area) can have significant implications on water balance at the sub-basin level. And the situation can go worse when there are prolonged drought events that are common in semi-arid regions. This study takes the system’s perspective (watershed level perspective) and focuses to under the the direct and indirect water footprints of Rosemont Mine over the multi-decadal time scale at the sub-basin level. The study will conduct a dynamic modeling of long-term water footprint of the Rosemont mine at sub-basin level and explore multiple scenarios. The scenarios include (i) extreme drought within the span of 40 years, (ii) simultaneous water demand in large mining operations in Green Valley, (ii) simultaneous growth over 40 years period in different sectors including residential and other sectors, and (iii) impact of job growth on residential water demand. Such study will lead to better understanding of the longer term effect of Rosemont mine on the long term water sustainability in the water scarce region. |
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No records
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François-Michel Le Tourneau |
2018 |
La mobilisation des normes transnationales dans les conflits socio-environnementaux: une comparaison sud nord des contestations dans les bassins miniers |
Conflit socio-environnemental
Normes transnationales
Soft law
Répertoire d’action collective
Politique d’État
Ordre juridique.
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Ce projet de recherche traite de la mobilisation de normes transnationales dans les conflits socio-environnementaux. Sous ce terme, ce projet inclut les normes environnementales, sociales et humaines des conventions internationales non ratifiées par les États ainsi que celles dites de soft law d’application non obligatoires et juridiquement non contraignantes tels que le guidelines des Principes directeurs de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE), ou encore les standards transnationaux dits de régulation volontaires tel le standard ISO 14001 de management environnemental ou les Principes volontaires de sécurité et droits humains. Ces instruments sont le plus souvent analysés dans la perspective de la gouvernance des problèmes globaux, mais se sont aussi des instruments qui servent de support de mobilisation pour les individus et groupes contestataires de projets industriels et extractifs comme j’ai déjà pu l’observer en Amérique latine. A partir du conflit autour de la mine Rosemont, développée par une entreprise canadienne assujettie à un certain nombre de standards, l’objectif de ce projet est de voir si dans un pays industrialisé et un État (l’Arizona) disposant d’une législation plus contraignante que les États latino-américains à l’égard des activités extractives, les opposants ont introduit ces normes dans leur répertoire d’action collective et pourquoi. La question simple sur laquelle repose ce projet est de savoir si des instruments mobilisés au Sud joue un rôle dans les conflits au Nord et pour qui, et son objectif est de contribuer à la déconstruction des discours symboliques derrière le projet de« sustainable mining ». |
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