Murphy and his team are putting the finishing touches on the first comprehensive look at the health of the Lake Tahoe watershed. The report is scheduled for release this fall. Scott Tyler , with a dual appointment as an associate professor of environmental and resource sciences at Nevada and a hydrologist at DRI, is researching the type and amount of nutrients discharged into Tahoe by groundwater. Nutrients flowing into the lake increase the algae population that leads to diminished lake clarity. Steven Seybold and Gary Blomquist , biochemistry professors, have studied bark beetle behavior and are working with the U.S. Forest Service and Nevada Division of Forestry on new strategies to ward off the attacks of the insect, which can kill great stands of coniferous trees.
Trees felled by the rice-sized insects become dangerous fuels for wildfire.
Richard Schweickert , chairman of geological sciences, geology professor Mary Lahren and Steve Wesnousky , director of the Center for Neotectonic Studies at Nevada, have performed research to better map the ground under Tahoe and define Basin weather patterns dating back thousands of years. Richard Tracy , director of the university's Biological Resources Research Center, and biology professors Peter Brussard and Dennis Murphy , are at the core of an innovative approach requested by Nevada U.S. Sen. Harry Reid in 1992 to develop plans to improve the health not only of Lake Tahoe in the form of the Lake Tahoe Watershed Assessment, but for the entire Carson Range that borders Lake Tahoe and sprawls to Reno. Our contribution will be to identify hotbeds of biological diversity that need slightly more protection than other places. John Warwick, former director of the university's graduate program of hydrologic sciences, is the principal investigator in a project that has monitored nutrient and sediment transport into the lake from a forested catchment in upper Incline Creek on the north shore. Studies continue on the impact of land use in urbanized settings, such as golf courses, home landscaping and roadways.