Faculty from the Cockrell School of Engineering are leading a four-year project in Alaska to study how climate change is affecting water quality and endangering Alaskan communities.  

According to a Cockrell press release, the team has been awarded two grants totaling $3 million from the National Science Foundation as part of NSF’s 10 Big Ideas program. The program funds research in 10 areas, including “Navigating the Arctic,” the area of study Cockrell researchers gained funding under.

The project is a collaboration between two UT researchers, University of Alaska researchers, the National Tribal Water Center and Knik Tribe members, according to the release. The water quality project started Sept. 1 and will end Aug. 31, 2024. 

Navid Saleh, the principal investigator for the project, said the release of nutrients, microbes and metals from melting permafrost and glaciers will put the Native communities in Alaska at risk when consuming the water. 

“Permafrost and glaciers, when they melt away, release these entombed microbes, bacteria and viruses … into the nearby water body which changes the makeup of the water,” said Saleh, an associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering. 

Saleh said the team will be sampling ice cores from glaciers and permafrost cores, and then conducting a series of experiments in the lab to learn more about the microbes found in the samples. 

Lewis Stetson Rowles, who worked on the project as a graduate student, said Native communities in Alaska already have water quality issues, stemming from both naturally occurring and artificial pollutants.

“These (issues) are really going to be exacerbated with climate change,” Stetson Rowles said. 

Saleh said the team will be working with Knik Tribe members because Indigenous knowledge about the water can be combined with the scientific insights from the project, so their communities can be more resilient to water quality changes in the future.

“We have to align with their ethos and norms so that we can provide them with a unified, convergent knowledge about their water quality, so that they can prepare themselves better and take action appropriately in the future,” Saleh said. 

Areeb Hossain, a civil engineering graduate student, said going to Alaska and working with Alaska Natives was a vital part of the project. 

“It's really important that we make sure they know the research we're doing and the implications that it has, and that we take their perspective (into account) — not just afterwards but also while we're doing the sample and the analysis,” Hossain said.

Theo Garcia, director of environmental & natural resources for the Knik Tribe, said it’s been helpful to have an outside source help assess water quality. 

“Water, culturally, is pretty important — having clean water, being able to be healthy within one's community, having a drinking source,” Garcia said. “There's different rural areas that have water resources that are contaminated with heavy metals … we're trying to be able to document some of those and hopefully coordinate with other other partners on sharing areas of concern or sharing areas where they could find healthier water resources.”

Garcia said the team is also planning on working with other Alaskan communities to compile a photo book in which the communities can share what water quality means to them in a cultural and historical context. 

Stetson Rowles said he is excited about working with Alaskan natives during the course of the project. 

“Doing the cutting edge science is really exciting and can have a huge impact on the scientific community,” Stetson Rowles said. “But what's equally exciting to me is dealing with real people, dealing with these communities that have … been really vulnerable to these changes and being able to work with them hand in hand.”