Wrigley Institute Faculty Affiliate Josh West studies the post-mining landscape of the Amazon
Original story by Natalie Hutchinson
When Wrigley Institute Faculty Affiliate Josh West, a professor of earth sciences and environmental studies at USC Dornsife, first took a ride on a truck through the Amazon rainforest, he was astounded at the biodiversity he witnessed. He’d go on to study the Amazon for around two decades, and now as a National Geographic Explorer, his research focuses on how the Amazon landscape has been drastically affected by mining and deforestation.
More specifically, West studies how the movement of water has changed in this system due to natural and human-caused activity, a well as the consequences of these transformations. He investigates “[water] pathways from raindrop to river flow, when and how vegetation uses water along the way, and the ways that streams and rivers transport carbon and nutrients,” as a member of the research team on the multi-year National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition.