Drew Eppehimer awarded Babbitt Dissertation Fellowship

Drew Eppehimer, a PhD student in the Arid Lands Resource Sciences GIDP, was recently awarded a Babbitt Dissertation Fellowship for his project "Restoration of Desert Rivers with Treated Wastewater". This prestigious fellowship is offered by the The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a leading resource for key issues concerning the use, regulation, and taxation of land, and is administered through the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, which works to advance water sustainability through land use planning, management, and decision-making. This year's call for proposals specifically focused on the Colorado River Basin, where the Babbit Center strives to orchestrate locally appropriate land use decisions that integrate land use and water planning. Drew's doctoral research addresses the use of treated wastewater, or 'recycled water', to re-create desert river ecosystems lost to groundwater pumping and land use change, such as the Santa Cruz River in Tucson. Specifically, Drew is studying the diversity and structure of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities, water quality and quantity issues, and the impacts of microplastic pollution on aquatic communities in wastewater-dominated streams.