Spotlight
DCDC Annual Poster Symposium
On April 25, 2012, Decision Center for a Desert City hosted our annual poster symposium.
A highlight of the spring semester, graduate students enrolled in DCDC’s Community of Graduate Scholars and undergraduate students participating in the Internship for Science-Practice Integration program presented the results of their DCDC research projects.
DCDC faculty members are involved in interdisciplinary collaborations that offer rich opportunities to graduate students. Each CGS student works on a research team that includes one or more faculty members and both graduate and undergraduate students; this work provides them with the intellectual depth necessary to contribute to DCDC’s research.
News
Navajos Concerned Over Water Deal With Feds
The house where Dixie Ellis lives with her mother is perched on a mesa above town. It is a steep hike up the hill from Lake Powell, the second-largest man-made reservoir on the continent, and an easier walk up Arizona 98 from the Navajo Generating Station, one of the country’s largest coal-fired power plants.
“Tourists ask me about it,” Ellis said, nodding at the three 774-foot smokestacks that rise into the northern sky from the power plant less than 3 miles down the hill. “I tell them we don’t even have running water or electricity. They can’t believe it.”
The power plant has emerged as an issue in a proposed water agreement between the federal government and the Navajo and Hopi tribes. The government has offered the Navajos an extra allotment of water…
Research
Urban Heat Island Research in Phoenix, Arizona: Theoretical Contributions and Policy Applications
Authors: Winston T. L. Chow, Dean Brennan, and Anthony J. Brazel
Over the past 60 years, metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, has been among the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States, and this rapid urbanization has resulted in an urban heat island (UHI) of substantial size and intensity. During this time, an uncommon amount of UHI-specific research, relative to other cities in North America, occurred within its boundaries.
This review investigates the possible reasons and motivations underpinning the large body of work, as well as summarizing specific themes, approaches, and theoretical contributions arising from such study.