New Mexico Researcher to Study Monsoon Affects on Wildfires

A researcher working at the Jornada Experimental Range in southern New Mexico has been awarded $400,000 for her part in a large study on summer rainfall patterns.

The study will look at how changes in the amount and timing of monsoons are likely to affect vegetation and fire frequency in the Southwest.

New Mexico State University says Debra Peters was awarded the funding from the National Science Foundation. She is a landscape ecologist at the Jornada range and an NMSU affiliated faculty member.

The $2.95 million collaborative research project is headed by Russell Munson, a professor of ecology at the University of Arizona.

In addition to Peters, the project involves more than a dozen researchers from Arizona, the University of Utah, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and two Sonoran universities.