The Water Resources Institute (WRI) announces its inaugural award to support a faculty team in developing a novel interdisciplinary research project. The team will be led by Dr. Rachelle Gould, an Associate Professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources (RSENR). Gould will be joined by Dr. Cheryl Morse, an Associate Professor of Geography in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), Dr. Carol Adair, an Associate Professor in RSENR and Director of the Aiken Forestry Sciences Laboratory, and Dr. Andrew Schroth, a Research Associate Professor of Geology in CAS.
The proposed project, Sacred Water: Intersections between religion, spirituality and water science, will explore how scientific understanding of water processes may interact with spirituality and peoples’ motivation to protect water, exploring connections between water science, religion and spirituality, and water stewardship behavior.
Understanding the connections between a biophysical necessity of human civilization, water, and one of the only cultural throughlines of human civilization, spirituality, may have broad impacts, both on human health and on ecosystem integrity. “Despite the prevalence of religion and spirituality in human life, there is almost no large-scale, rigorous research that explores how the spiritual/religious importance so central to so many human lives relate to nature, and specifically to water,” says Gould. “Water is the logical place to center this inquiry, because it is both more politically neutral than topics like climate change and is also a necessary feature of every human civilization.”
The team will target development of a proposal to the John Templeton Foundation, which funds “bold ideas from contrarian thinkers — ideas that cross disciplinary boundaries and challenge conventional assumptions.” The project touches on three of the Foundation’s six funding areas: Religion, Science and Society, Character Virtue, and Life Sciences.
The WRI Faculty Collaborative Grant-writing Fund was launched to provide support to faculty to enable them to pursue collaborative, externally-funded projects that build capacity around at least one of the WRI’s four key goals: (1) enhance the flow of information and ideas by establishing a hub of water research at the nexus of natural and social sciences, human health, design, engineering, and governance, (2) educate the next generation of problem solvers on water issues and water justice, (3) coordinate and develop new water-related programs, facilities, and services on campus, and (4) build bridges with external academic, nonprofit, state, federal, and international partners that accelerate the translation of research to practice.
Future calls under this WRI funding mechanism will seek to build additional collaborative faculty teams and position them to secure competitive grant funding. Watch for details of our upcoming call in Spring 2025.
