Desert Southwest Domain

The Desert Southwest Domain is a long, narrow region that runs along the US-Mexico border between Southern California and Texas that includes parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The NEON candidate core site is located about 50 km south of Tucson, at the Santa Rita Experimental Range. The site is managed by the University of Arizona and has a 100-year history of ecological research. Other institutional collaborators in the domain include Arizona State University, the University of California-Riverside, New Mexico State University, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Texas at El Paso. The NEON emphasis in the Desert Southwest is on land use, with a focus on the urban-to-rural impacts of rapid development in Phoenix and Tucson. The Desert Southwest shares this urban-to-rural research dynamic with its sister site at in the Northeast (Harvard Forest to Boston).

Domain: Desert Southwest (Domain #14)

Science Focus: Land use and climate change.

Candidate Core Site Name: Santa Rita Experimental Range

Representativeness: The site reflects a key Desert Southwest land use pattern (rapid urbanization in Phoenix-Tucson), precipitation regime, and dominant vegetation (desertscrub and grassland) which represents 90 percent of the domain.

Location: Latitude: 31.911; Longitude: -110.835.

Existing Infrastructure: The site offers year-round accessibility, security, and cyberinfrastructure.