Latest On The Conservation Gateway

A well-managed and operational Conservation Gateway is in our future! Marketing, Conservation, and Science have partnered on a plan to rebuild the Gateway into the organization’s enterprise content management system (AEM), with a planned launch of a minimal viable product in late 2024. If you’re interested in learning more about the project, reach out to megan.sheehan@tnc.org for more info!

​To fill a gap in understanding of groundwater availability and ecosystem response for groundwater-dependent ecosystems, we have a project entitled "Quantifying environmental water requirements for groundwater-dependent ecosystems for resilient water management" that is funded by the US Bureau of Reclamation's WaterSMART Applied Science Program with matching funds from NV Energy Foundation, Desert Research Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and The Nature Conservancy. This 3-year project began in October 2020 and is being led by Dr. Christine Albano at the Desert Research Institute, Dr. Laurel Saito at The Nature Conservancy, and Dr. Steven Loheide at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Please see the attached 2-page brief for more information about the project.

Workshop 1 - February 23, 2021 

We held our first workshop on the project on February 23, 2021 as a virtual workshop to provide an overview of the project, share our preliminary work. We also had some interactions to get input from workshop participants about how we can maximize the value of this project for participants and others in Nevada. Below are links to materials associated with the workshop.

  • Recording of workshop (49 minutes)
  • Steve Loheide slides about the groundwater subsidy concept
  • Christine Albano slides about the approach and research design
  • Interactive exercise outcomes about the following questions:
    • In what ways does your work involve or intersect with groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs)?
    • What aspects of the system/groundwater regime do you think are most important for supporting GDEs and which do you anticipate are/have changed in regional GDEs?
      • X-axis(effort) is from unlikely to impact GDEs on left to likely to impact GDEs on right
      • Y-axis (impact) is from stable (i.e., GDEs unlikely to change) at bottom to GDEs shifting rapidly at top
    • How might this project be helpful to you? What questions do you hope we will be able to answer by the end of this project?

 ​We welcome additional feedback and are still looking for additional datasets. Please contact Christine Albano or Laurel Saito to provide feedback, information about datasets, or would like further information about the project.

Return to groundwater-dependent ecosystems page