Finding Water Resiliency
Water is Life…especially in the desert. Dr. Karletta Chief, Director of the Indigenous Resilience Center at the University of Arizona, leads initiatives for Tribal water security and community-driven climate solutions. Dr. Chief, a Diné hydrologist and professor, shares how growing up in Black Mesa on the Navajo Nation has influenced her current work. She emphasizes the importance of utilizing traditional knowledge alongside western science, and ensuring Indigenous communities’ central role in decision-making. We learn about the powerful mission of the Indigenous Resilience Center, and Dr. Chief shares her hopes for empowering the next generation of Indigenous youth to lead and innovate in their communities.
Meet the Scientist: Karletta Chief
Dr. Karletta Chief (Diné) is a UArizona Distinguished Outreach Faculty 2021 and Professor and Extension Specialist in Environmental Science at the University of Arizona. Dr. Chief works to bring relevant water science to Native American communities in a culturally sensitive manner. As Director of the Indigenous Resilience Center, she aims to facilitate efforts of UArizona climate/environment researchers, faculty, staff, and students working with Native Nations to build resilience to climate impacts and environmental challenges. Two of her primary tribal projects are The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Climate Adaptation and Traditional Knowledge Project and Gold King Mine Spill Diné Exposure Project. Dr. Chief also leads the NSF Indigenous Food, Energy, and Water Security and Sovereignty Program and is training 38 graduate students. Indige-FEWSS’s vision is to develop a diverse workforce with intercultural awareness and expertise in sustainable food, energy, and water systems (FEWS), specifically through off grid technologies to address the lack of safe water, energy, and food security in Indigenous communities. Dr. Chief received a B.S. and M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University in 1998 and 2000 and a Ph.D. in Hydrology and Water Resources from UArizona in 2007.
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Interview Excerpt - Water, Land, and Identity
Today, we’re talking with Dr. Karletta Chief, director of the Indigenous Resilience Center at the University of Arizona and extension specialist and professor in the department of environmental science. Dr. Chief holds degrees in civil and environmental engineering and hydrology and her expertise is in working with tribal communities on issues related to water resources. Dr. Chief has been honored by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Stanford University, the Phoenix Indian Center, the American Geophysical Union, among many others.
Science Moab: You bring a variety of knowledge to your work, weaving together your cultural background and the practice of western science as well. What are some of the water challenges that tribal communities are facing today?
Chief: Yes, I’m really fortunate and honored to be part of a nationwide collaborative network that involves scientists…a few who are Indigenous…but a lot of allies and supporters of work within Indigenous communities, also Indigenous and Native American tribal community leaders, community activists that work in this whole area of water.
What I learned from working in this collaborative was that tribes are deeply connected to the places in which they live. This involves their cultural livelihood, their spirituality, their identity. So when there are environmental impacts to their water and to the places where they live, it really impacts them at a much deeper level.
When we talk about water, it also means impacts to land, impacts to species, and impacts to food. That’s why I started looking at it more from a holistic lens. Some of the tribes may have existing water infrastructure, but they may need more maintenance or they may not be able to handle water quality changes. some communities don’t even have water. So it just varies across the whole United States. So There’s no one answer I can give you in a nutshell but more recently, I have been working with the Navajo Nation specifically, and even within the Navajo Nation, it also varies greatly when you talk about water security.
Science Moab:What have you learned in your work, to address tribal water issues through the different lenses of traditional ecological knowledge and Western science?
Chief: What I’ve learned and what I have learned, I try to share with others and it’s really important to build trust and to build trust you have to have that transparency, dialogue, and be of service to Indigenous communities because, you can’t really be a partner unless you have that trust.
And in my work, it’s really a lot of conversations, a lot of outreach, and to be invited to those communities and I’m not invited to all these communities so I only work in the communities that I have been invited to work with, and that’s part of building that trust. And finding those places where I’m invited to participate in and then working from there to learn and understand the community and understand what the needs are, priorities are, and then seeing if there’s a fit there to be a partner and to work with that tribe.
And it’s really important that. The work that we do is community driven that abides by Indigenous data sovereignty protocols, and that we’re invited in that the work we’re doing is approved by the tribal community.It’s a building trust, having transparency having constant and continual communication and having approval to work in those communities to do these types of projects, ensuring that the community are driving that project that their research priorities are at the forefront.
Science Moab: The Indigenous Resilience Center, IRES, which you lead at the University of Arizona, has recently become a climate hub. Could you break down the goals of the IRES?
Chief: What we’re focused on is really in line with our vision and our mission at IRES, and that is centering Indigenous knowledges towards environmental climate solutions. Our areas of work focus on the food energy water nexus.
Several of our faculty are working with various tribal communities within the FUSE nexus and this includes research, education, and outreach. Michael Kotutwa Johnson, who’s a Hopi professor here at the U of A is doing a lot of work on Indigenous agriculture, particularly working with seed sovereignty because many of these tribal communities use native, their Indigenous seeds to do Indigenous agriculture.
Another effort with Joe Hoover, who’s a professor in environmental science, is looking at how communities are being impacted by Environmental contamination and making sure that the data being collected considers Indigenous livelihood and perspectives, and then making sure that data from the water quality is given back to tribal communities so that they can better make decisions in real time. Dr. Hoover has developed a GIS water portal that compiles a lot of his water data and many of the Navajo decision makers, managers use it to quickly look at the data that’s out there that have either been collected by his team or other teams.
Science Moab:What do you want to see for the futures of the tribal communities that you work with?
Chief: I would love to see young people continuing to go back to their communities, whether it’s physically or virtually and be part of co-designing and coming up with these solutions to address environmental challenges. they’re contributing to the resilience of their nations and that they’re connecting their communities with these resources out there with the networks, the data because our young people, they’re passionate, they love their communities. They’re proud of their identities. They’re smart. They contribute in really unique ways to problem solving. They understand their history, their culture, their languages, and they’re the change makers and the connectors to their communities to create and reach these solutions.
They’re the future Of our communities. so making that connection and supporting them to go back to their communities is really what I’m passionate about. And I would like to see more and more into the future.
