Sul Ross State University
A Member of the Texas State University System

   Alpine, Texas stands at the gateway to the Big Bend and Rio Bravo ecosystem. Encompassing Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park and the Sierra del Carmen preserve in Mexico, it's nearly three million acres represent one of the largest protected biospheres on earth. A 2011 bilateral agreement signed by Secretary of the Interior Salazar and Mexican Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada recognizes continued binational cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico.

   The Big Bend/Rio Bravo is unique in the world for field research. Students and faculty affiliated with the Rio Grande Research Center are engaged in numerous research projects relevant to better understanding the complex ecology of the transboundary ecological corridor.

   The Rio Grande Research Center was established by Sul Ross State University in 2004 to foster biological, geological, agricultural and environmental research in the Rio Grande Basin. The Center also administers the Sustainable Agricultural Water Conservation Research Project, a special grant funded through the United States Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) and National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awards numbered 2004-38899-02181, 2006-38899-03586, 2008-38869-19174, 2009-38899-20017, 2010-38899-21534.