Striving for Reliable and Safe Water Supplies
The Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso strives to address problems arising from El Paso’s unique geography. The city is situated on the U.S.-Mexico border and is home to 800,000 people — 96 percent of the population of Far West Texas. Across the Rio Grande is the neighboring Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, with a population of 1.3 million. The region’s frequent droughts and rapidly growing population underscore an urgent need for sufficient, reliable, safe, and cost-efficient water supplies. Focusing on the most pressing needs of Far West Texas, the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso is home to internationally recognized research programs in groundwater and surface water management, freshwater conservation, salinity management, controlled environment agriculture, natural resource economics and policy, hydrological system dynamics and resilience, and the development of profitable drought- and salt-tolerant crops.
Water Resources and Salinity Management
The Water Resources and Salinity Management research program specializes in, salinity assessment and management, beneficial use of waters with elevated salinity such as industrial wastewater, gray-water, reclaimed water, and brackish groundwater, and on-farm water conservation.
Urban Horticulture
Our horticulture research includes urban landscape water conservation and controlled environment agriculture. Our mission is to select, evaluate, and propagate superior plants with improved tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses suitable for semi-arid and arid landscapes and to develop information and technologies for crop production under controlled environment (greenhouse, high tunnels and vertical indoor farms).
Hydrology and Water
The Hydrology and Water research program focuses on hydrology in arid regions, and transboundary water resources planning and management.
Natural Resource Economics and Policy
The natural resource economics and policy program at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso is working at the forefront of natural resource policy and research.
Water System Dynamics and Resilience
The program will help improve the understanding of the complex system dynamics that connect water with energy, natural resources, agriculture, ecosystem integrity, communities, and economic sustainability in the arid region. The key goal is to develop mathematical models and enable direct interaction with stakeholders for actionable decision making.