projects

Greater Preparedness and Resilience to Post-Wildfire Flooding in Native American Communities

We are working the Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh to enhance community resilience to wildfires and post-wildfire flooding. Using Low-Cost Efficient Wireless Intelligent Sensors (LEWIS) technology developed by PI Fernando Moreu, we're working with the community to co-design and co-build sensor solutions for their pressing environmental monitoring needs. This represents a paradigm shift and a novel approach to smart and connected communities: the communities now will be designing and developing their own sensors/solutions they chose rather than using commercial, pre-designed, proprietary sensors. These self-built distributed sensor networks will inform communities of trends and thresholds in landscapes that can assist in managing wildfires and could provide early warning when fires and floods do occur. This project’s long-term vision is to develop a Nationwide community of practice that shares ideas, designs, and applications for resilience in Tribal communities by co-developing capacity and communications related to sensor networks and decision-support tools.

Research team

  • PI: Fernando Moreu (Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, University of New Mexico)

  • Co-PI: Carolyn Hushman (Education and Human Sciences, University of New Mexico)

  • Co-PI: Yolanda Lin (Geography and Environmental Studies, University of New Mexico)

  • Co-PI: Mark Stone (Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, University of New Mexico)

  • Co-PI: Su Zhang (Earth Data Analysis Center, University of New Mexico)

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