By Harmony Martinez, Biology Major, Mentor William Mejia. The Santa Fe Municipal Watershed (SFMW) is of both great ecological and economic importance, providing 20-40% of Santa Fe’s water supply. However, due to a long history of fire suppression, the wilderness surrounding the SFMW is at high risk of a severe forest fire. If a wildfire were to happen, the ecosystem would lose large swaths of vegetative cover, become more prone to erosion, and significantly alter the water chemistry and overall quality, all of which would take the forest decades to recover from. Drought conditions in the Southwest are also projected to increase with climate change, making it necessary for existing water resources to remain viable. My mentor William Mejia’s research collects high quality data across 20 sites of the watershed’s streams to better understand how the system works for the SFMW’s management to create new maintenance strategies. His research will determine which streams contribute the best quality and nutrients to the main branch of the river further downstream and should take priority in protective efforts. This data will also be used to understand how other streams in the Southwest operate for even wider-spanning results.
My project aims to create a sculpture of the SFMW highlighting the connections between the water, land, and people. My sculpture will follow the same flow as the river to demonstrate how streams are affected by the surrounding land and how everything upstream accumulates downstream. My goal is to view land and water activism as inseparable and to encourage active groups into working together. The second goal of my project was to spread awareness of a vital resource that is easily underappreciated. In my sculpture water pours from the river out of a faucet, to reconnect participants with the source of their water.
