Reeve to spend spring semester on a Fulbright in Mexico

Hydrogeologist Andrew Reeve, a University of Maine professor of Earth sciences, will spend the spring 2022 semester as a Fulbright-Garcia-Robles Scholar in Mexico. 

Reeve will collaborate with Flor Arcega Cabrera at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Sisal, whose research focuses on geochemistry and environmental pollution. Reeve will assist with an ongoing project studying the region of influence for a recently established Geohydrologic Reserve, formed to protect the recharge zone for groundwater that supplies municipal wells for the largest city in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Reeve leads the hydrogeology program in the UMaine School of Earth and Climate Sciences. His teaching and research focus on environmental geology, and groundwater hydrology — the flow and chemistry of water in the subsurface — and computer modeling.

In Sisal, Reeve will test idealized groundwater models based on assumed bedrock permeability distributions by comparing simulations with hydrogeologic and chemical data. He will develop 

groundwater flow and transport models for the Yucatan Peninsula to aid in system conceptualization and data interpretation, and augment data collection at monitoring stations by installing pressure sensors to record water level and temperature. The use of modern computer tools and improved remote sensing data, including event-driven changes in water levels, temperature and water chemistry, could improve evaluation of the Yucatan’s subsurface hydrologic conditions.