News

Wildfire management is high stakes and often complex. Fire managers have to consider environmental conditions, weather forecasts and climatic trends, all while making decisions with lives and landscapes on the line.

When Hopi farmer Michael Kotutwa Johnson speaks of seeds, he refers to them as “children.” So when a colleague brought him corn seeds that had been preserved for 800 years – hidden in a cave near historical Hopi villages around Glen Canyon – it was like welcoming children home.

The new initiative within the Arizona Institute for Resilience will unite and expand existing heat-related programs at the University of Arizona, positioning the university as a global leader in heat resilience through research, education, and outreach.

A University of Arizona program that has been central to the university's service to Indigenous communities will begin celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, and invites the campus and Tucson communities to join.

The Power Forecasting Group within the Arizona Institute for Resilience has launched a new website that shows high-resolution forecasts of weather events across the Southwest. The site helps city managers, emergency responders, and utility companies plan and prepare – and it’s right up the alley of amateur weather buffs, too.

Our own Dr. Elise Gornish, Director of the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, has been awarded the 2024 University of Arizona Distinguished Scholar Award. Dr. Gornish is an associate professor of restoration ecology and an associate specialist at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment within the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences.

Following an open competition, the University of Arizona has been selected to continue its work as host institution for the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center. The center, part of the university's Arizona Institute for Resilience, also received $7.4 million from the U.S. Geological Survey to help fund practical solutions to high-priority climate adaptation needs.

Elise Gornish, an associate professor and extension specialist in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment under the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, has been appointed the new faculty director of the Arizona Institute for Resilience’s Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill.

Gregg M. Garfin, deputy director for science translation and outreach at the Arizona Institute for Resilience at the University of Arizona, says rising temperatures and heat waves are already impacting summer concerts, and in hotter regions, the shoulder seasons (spring and fall) are becoming riskier too.

Researcher Peter Breslin, of the Arizona Institute for Resilience at the University of Arizona has surveyed thousands of saguaros that spike up from Tumamoc Hill, a volcanic outcropping in Tucson, in 2022 and 2023.