Ongoing studies are investigating the quality of urban runoff during wet and dry weather conditions. The funding from this research is from the UNLV-NIA (The New Investigator Award) program and the State of Nevada, Division of Environmental Protection.
The main goal of this research project is to characterize the presence of nutrients, suspended solids, dissolved solids, and chemical oxygen demand (COD) in urban runoff. This is particularly relevant in the Las Vegas Valley where all of the runoff goes to the main drinking water source (Lake Mead). An overarching theme is to quantify the percentage contribution from
urban runoff to the total loadings to Lake Mead from the Las Vegas Wash.