Nevada Desert FACE Facility
A High CO₂ World in the Mojave Desert

The Desert Research Institute is one of four collaborators in a state-of-the-art facility designed to study responses of an undisturbed desert ecosystem to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is expected to double within 70 years, and the cumulative effects on plants and ecosytems are unknown.

The Nevada Desert FACE Facility (NDFF), located in the Mojave Desert north of Las Vegas, is the only arid-ecosystem research facility in the world addressing the effects of elevated carbon dioxide in a natural setting. The FACE facilities are designed to permit a controlled release of elevated carbon dioxide in the air around vegetation without disturbing other environmental and ecosystem conditions.

In addition to DRI, other collaborators at NDFF include the University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of Nevada Reno, and Brookhaven National Laboratory . The facility is supported by the US Department of Energy and the Nevada Test Site.

Contact Lynn Fenstermaker , the NDFF Director for further information.