Interdisciplinary Science at the USGS Rocky Mountain Region 2022 Science Exchange

Problems where natural systems and people meet, and the fast policy decisions they demand, call for interdisciplinary science and new technology. Understanding the rivers that sustain the western United States, for example, takes hydrology, geochemistry, water quality, geomorphology and ecology, combined with remote sensing, modeling and advanced monitoring on the ground. The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Rocky Mountain Region 2022 Science Exchange showed how that kind of work in the Rocky Mountains and the Colorado River Basin is improving understanding, meeting the needs of partners and informing timely decisions.

Making interdisciplinary science routine

Keynote speakers called for interdisciplinary science to become part of the fabric of the USGS, as familiar to design and manage as single-discipline projects, which managers acknowledged will take cultural and structural change. They also stressed that USGS science must be readily usable by managers and policymakers, and described a "participatory science" model in which scientists and partners design projects and products together, co-producing science with outside partners and other Interior Department bureaus. Bringing in the social sciences, urban planning, and Indigenous and community knowledge can help the USGS translate its work into useful products and tools for the communities that need them.

The obstacles are real. At the organizational level, funding structures and cycles differ across bureaus and USGS mission areas, and scientific goals must be merged; USGS leaders are building integrated project plans and network-analysis and data-mining tools to connect groups with similar goals. At the project level, the challenges include group dynamics, psychological safety, resources and deadlines, and merging different kinds of data and vocabulary. Suggested answers included building teams' capacity to work together, making assumptions and expectations explicit, creating a safe space for brainstorming, and using data lakes, shared semantics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to work across datasets.

Highlights

• Colorado River Basin. The Actionable and Strategic Integrated Science and Technology (ASIST) pilot project, formed after the 2020 Science Exchange, is testing how partner involvement and advanced technology can deliver integrated science products for the basin.

The USGS approach to advancing interdisciplinary drought science. U.S. Geological Survey.

• Water as one system. Presentations covered a holistic assessment of Fountain Creek, Colorado, spanning ecology, water quality, geomorphology and surface water; the narrowing of the Green and Colorado rivers over time and its effect on aquatic habitat; a remote-sensing system and web app to track river vegetation, water use and habitat health; new snow models for water forecasting; using tritium as a tracer to estimate base flow; and sources of high nitrate in Chihuahuan Desert groundwater.

Snowmelt dynamics in a typical year. Snow water equivalent measures the volume of water in snowpack. U.S. Geological Survey.

• Cascading hazards. A USGS Astrogeology Science Center scenario of an asteroid impact traced short-term local effects such as blast winds, tsunamis and fires to longer, wider effects such as flooding, water pollution and crop failure, the kind of chain that needs planetary scientists, geologists, climate scientists, wildlife ecologists and emergency responders. Other talks covered wildfire effects on lake water and ecosystems, and conserving and restoring sagebrush habitat, including areas taken over by invasive grasses that feed wildfires.
• New methods. Scientists are adapting Colorado River and Grand Canyon methods to estimate sediment budgets on Mars; combining noncontact streamflow monitors and field measurements with drone-based lidar, radar and photogrammetry and airborne snow observatories; developing environmental DNA (eDNA) scores to monitor endangered and invasive fish and their exposure to toxins more quickly; and building VaMPiRE (Values Mapping for Planning in Regional Ecosystems), an interactive public mapping survey that will help the Bureau of Land Management weigh public land-use goals.

Outcomes

The Science Exchange let USGS scientists share interdisciplinary projects and partner engagement and form new collaborations, and showed a desire to build this kind of science into USGS funding and management. It also highlighted how online tools such as virtual meetings, file sharing and virtual public lectures have improved collaboration and co-produced science in recent years.

Sources

• U.S. Geological Survey, "U.S. Geological Survey Rocky Mountain Region 2022 science exchange, showcasing interdisciplinary and state-of-the-art USGS science," Fact Sheet 2023–3017. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20233017/full
• Colorado River Basin integrated science: https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/colorado-river-basin