UC Berkeley Water Research and Opportunities Portal

This course covers alternative models of production, resource and environmental risk management; family production function; adoption and diffusion; innovation and intellectual property rights; agricultural and environmental policies and their impact on production and the environment; water resources; pest control; biotechnology; and optimal control over space and time.

Professor Athanasopoulos-Zekkos’s research focus and expertise is on assessing and mitigating the impact of multi-hazard stressors on geotechnical engineering infrastructure, with particular emphasis on challenges due to age-related deterioration, population growth and densification, natural and human-made hazards, and new demands from climate change.

Particular areas of research include
(1) the response of flood protection systems such as levees that are old and rapidly deteriorating as well as threatened by increasing demands due to increasing water levels, (2) the performance of critical systems such as ports during earthquakes, (3) the effects of man-induced vibrations from pile driving in dense urban environments and near critical infrastructure such as bridges and retaining walls, and (4) the use of new materials, advanced sensing and next-generation laboratory and field testing to inform us on efficient and sustainable mitigation of aging systems.

As an early career global and regional climate modeler, I have a keen interest in understanding how mountainous water cycle processes are influenced by climate change, how those changes might influence water resource management, and how the scientific community might better help water managers preemptively adapt to these changes. My focus is primarily on the mountains of the western U.S. across long-term (hydroclimate) and short-term (hydrometeorological extremes) timescales.

Albert Ruhi focuses on understanding how freshwater communities and food webs respond to global change, with a special emphasis on the effects of hydrologic alteration and drought.

His projects include:
1) 2019-23 Collaborative Proposal: NSF MSB-FRA: Scaling Climate, Connectivity, and Communities in Streams
2) 2019-20 California Institute for Water Resources (CIWR) Water Research Program. Towards a Mechanistic Understanding of the Multi-Scale Effects of Drought on Riverine Biodiversity
3) 2019-20 California Department of Fish and Wildlife Awards. Reconnecting Delta food webs: evaluating the influence of tidal marsh restoration on energy flow and prey availability for native fishes
4) 2019-20 Subaward from the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, University of Maryland. Advancing quantitative methods to understand causal pathways and feedbacks within complex socio-hydrological systems.

Alexis Kaminski is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Alexis received her BSc (2010) and MSc (2012) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta, and her PhD (2016) in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining UC Berkeley in 2021, she worked as a postdoc in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and at the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory. Her research interests include stratified flows, hydrodynamic instabilities, transition to turbulence, mixing and entrainment, internal waves, non-normal stability, upper-ocean dynamics, physical oceanography, geophysical and environmental fluid dynamics.

Alison Post focuses on a variety of water related research agendas that includes analyzing water distribution in Latin America, urban planning, and water politics in India. Post’s current research is looking at the ways in which water resources as a political entity and how it intersects with urban planning at the human level.

Her projects include:
1) Water intermittency in India with Professor Isha Ray. A field experiment into the effects of text message alerts to individual community members about when they can expect water services. Related research into the role of street-level bureaucrats in operating/prioritizing water service and their relationship to the communities they serve.
2) Implications of how infrastructure and utility agencies manage competing risks (including earthquakes, wildfires, cyberattacks) and how they prioritize their address of risk.
3) Political implications for rapid urbanization in the developing world; particularly how policy-making operates in small- and medium-size cities where the bulk of population growth is occurring in the developing world. Looking into why small towns and medium-sized cities are spending much more money on public health and education in comparison to water security and distribution.

AWWA and its members recognize the importance of investing in students as the future of the water industry. AWWA supports students through discounted memberships and more than 17 scholarships, listed on its website.

Dr. Pickering’s research combines tools from multiple disciplines (engineering, economics, microbiology, epidemiology) to identify low-cost and scalable interventions to interrupt disease transmission in low-income countries. Dr. Pickering has 15 years of experience collaborating with partners in Benin, Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India on research to improve human health and well-being.

Projects include:
1) Using environmental sampling (surfaces, sewage, soil) to monitor trends in infectious disease in communities
2) Leveraging human-centered design to co-create water, sanitation, and hygiene technologies with community partners

Dr. Jones’s research uses quantitative Earth system science tools –computer models, uncertainty quantification techniques, etc. – to gain decision-relevant insight into how humans affect the climate and vice versa. Major themes include the “usability” of regional climate projections for adaptation planning, the resilience of energy, water, and food systems to multiple stressors, the role of land use change in efforts to both reduce and adapt to climate change, and the tightly coupled interactions among people, built infrastructure, and environmental processes in urban contexts.

Projects include:
1) Project Hyperion, within which he leads a stakeholder engagement process with water management professionals in four case study basins across the US aimed at evaluating and improving the decision-relevance of high-resolution climate projections for long-range water system planning
2) Efforts to understand urban environmental processes (heat waves, vegetation dynamics, hydrologic flows and their implications for energy and water resources) in the context of changing climate, land use, and demographics.

Examination of major disease-related of diverse eco-systems and the biological responses of human populations to these stresses: arctic, high-altitude, arid zones, grasslands, humid tropics, urban.

Arpad Horvath focuses on life-cycle environmental and economic assessment of products, processes, and services. He is particularly interested in answering important questions about civil infrastructure systems and the built environment: transportation systems, water and wastewater systems, biofuels, pavements, buildings, and construction materials.

His projects include:
1) Environmental implications of various products, processes and services, in particular, transportation systems, water and wastewater systems, biofuels, pavements, buildings, and construction materials.

Ashok Gadgil focuses on novel technologies for producing affordable safe drinking water by removing various harmful contaminants. Current focus contaminants are: arsenic, fluoride, lead, TDS, Emerging Organic Contaminants, and silica.

His projects include:
1) Prevention of drinking water contamination from lead pipes.
2) Reduction of toxic concentrations of fluoride in groundwater to safe levels
3) Creation of safe drinking water from groundwater contaminated with high levels of arsenic

STeam is an ASUC-sponsored organization aimed at making the campus more sustainable through the creation of and participation in project groups. Each project group is focused on a specific issue area related to campus sustainability. Currently, these include Internal Department of Sustainability, STeam Energy Group, One-Side Clean (OSC), Students Toward Zero Plastic (STOP), Berkeley FLOW, I Will Ride, and Fossil Free Cal. Berkeley FLOW in particular works with water conservation on campus.

BEACN is a student-run, nonprofit consulting organization that works with clients both on and off campus on projects that encourage environmental responsibility each semester. BEACN’s mission is “to provide comprehensive strategies to our clients that integrate environmental, social, and economic factors in business decision-making processes” while offering students the opportunity to implement sustainable practices in a real world setting, while offering businesses quality consulting services and research based on up-to-date environmental and business data.

The Bay Area Water Quality Fellowship is open to graduate students whose studies are related specifically to water quality issues that affect the San Francisco Bay. It is intended to support scientific research in the following topics:
-the exposure or effect, if any, of organisms within the San Francisco Bay estuary to selenium, metals, and/or organic chemicals through food chain transfer
-the degree, if any, to which sediments are a source of exposure for organisms within the San Francisco Bay estuary to selenium, metals, and/or organic chemicals
-other research that involves the effect of pollution on the San Francisco Bay estuary and/or its ecosystem.

Applications are due at the beginning of Spring semester. Recipients will receive $15,000 for the following Fall semester. The award can be used as a payment for registration fees and/or stipend.

BERC is a multidisciplinary network of UC Berkeley students, alumni, faculty, industry professionals, and advisers who seek to turn world-leading research into world-changing solutions by tackling tough and timely energy, water, and environmental challenges. Its mission is to connect, educate, and engage its members in order to foster innovation and action.

The Berkeley Food Institute addresses many of the impediments to systemic change in food systems by creating productive connections between members of the scholarly community, farmers and other producers, non-governmental organizations, governments, and civil society. Facilitating such connections brings about social movements and civic initiatives that protest and resist the predominance of the industrialized food system, catalyzing alternative, localized, regional, or global “agri-food networks” that can improve food sovereignty, environmental conditions, and human health and justice. These movements and initiatives represent exciting potential for progressive change. BFI builds links and overcomes gaps or silos that have commonly impeded progress in this field. It has many projects including one that combines research and outreach to foster innovative, sustainable urban farming methods to improve ecological resilience and meet urgent food needs. Lead investigators and community collaborators will help develop transformative solutions to improve the ecological sustainability of urban farming systems by building soil health, conserving water, and promoting beneficial insects. The project will also foster economic viability by improving distribution of urban-produced nutritious food to make it more accessible and affordable for urban populations and to minimize on-farm food waste. This project will benefit farmers, low-income consumers, and the educators, advocates and lawmakers who serve them. Research is taking place in the Bay Area, and lessons will be valuable for other urban communities throughout the state and country.

The Berkeley Water Center seeks to create more resilient, equitable, and sustainable water systems with access to safe water for all by
leveraging Berkeley research to accelerate groundbreaking solutions for
the world’s water problems.

The Berkeley Water Center cultivates, facilitates and supports a broad range of interdisciplinary research projects to address local and global water challenges; builds connections among academia, policy-makers, and practitioners to enable research-driven solutions to emergent water problems; translates and promotes research results for a wide audience to better inform decision-making about water system planning and development; and empowers UC Berkeley students with opportunities, skills and a research community to develop innovative ideas and to become water leaders.

The Berkeley Water Center is supported by the College of Natural Resources and the College of Engineering. Its affiliates work across the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and have a broad range of research interests and expertise, spanning engineered infrastructure and technology development; planning, monitoring and understanding of natural and engineered water systems; understanding of social, institutional and political contexts of water systems; equitable access to water; water law and policy; economics of urban and agricultural water systems; and public health.

The BWG IdeaLab is an interdisciplinary forum where students can can meet, collaborate, and discuss the topics of water, sanitation and hygiene.

Opportunity for programmatic use of the reserve. Available for research use with faculty sponsorship. Central idea to facilitate research.
Considering areas where they can encourage grants program to fund student research availability.
Stewardship opportunities available-SAs live and work on the reserve to maintain

Boaxia Mi focuses on physicochemical processes emphasizing nanomaterials and membrane science/technology for drinking water purification and wastewater reuse. Her lab is developing sustainable membrane processes for emergency water supply, water reuse, desalination, and sustainable energy harvesting

Her projects include:
1) Nanomaterials to target removal of materials such as heavy metals.
2) Graphene oxide (GO) nanomaterials to synthesize a fundamentally new class of water filtration membranes for emerging water contaminants.
3) Nanotechnology to collect solar power for desalination process

Each year, the Cal Environmental Team designs and constructs a simple, sustainable water filter that can treat wastewater. The team then competes at the American Society of Civil Engineers Mid Pacific Conference to test their design against that of other teams from western U.S. universities.

CALPIRG is a statewide, student-directed and student-funded nonprofit that aims to educate the public about various issues, especially environmental issues, that have an impact on all Californians. CALPIRG researches problems, promotes solutions, and demands decision-makers to act.

CSSC is a broad network of student sustainability organizations throughout the UC, CSU, and CCC systems. Managed and coordinated by students and recent alumni, CSSC strives to implement policies and programs at various institutional levels that enhance the three key components of sustainability: ecology, economy, and equity. It offers student activists a community of support and ways to get involved with the larger statewide sustainability movement.

The Canadian Studies Program is involved in research and investigation on the renewal terms of the Canadian-American Columbia River Treaty and the management of the river system. The project is focused on science requirements and needs for a modernized treaty. The research looks into how water is managed throughout the river system through dams and river flows, and also looks into how environmental impacts are assessed and how to promote ecological sustainability throughout the system.

There are great academic and funding opportunities for any students looking to join the research on the Columbia River Treaty project.

CERCH is a world leader in researching and highighting key aspects of environmental health risks, especially as they impact pregnant women and their children. To accomplish this mission, CERCH investigates exposures to future parents and children and evaluate long term effects on child health, behavior, and development. We work to help key stakeholders translate our research findings into sustainable strategies to reduce environment-related childhood disease, directly involving local communities in the process. CERCH prioritizes engaging communities to inform study design, implementation, and dissemination and helping to identify key solutions to pressing environmental issues.

Currently CERCH is investigating drinking water and birth outcomes with attention to drinking water data involving nitrates and arsenic.

CERCH plans to expand research into:
-Nitrates in Salinas Valley water
-Use of produced water in agriculture
-Pharmaceuticals in potable or irrigation water from recycled wastewater

The Center for Resource Efficient Communities is a research center at the University of California, Berkeley devoted to the study of ecologically sustainable urban environments. Our work focuses on:

The effects of existing and potential urban land use patterns, transportation systems, and building design and management practices on levels of greenhouse gas emissions;
The planning, financing, regulation and public acceptance of innovative urban water infrastructure;
The evaluation of existing and potential municipal, regional, state and national policy mechanisms for advancing urban sustainability

The Center for Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry (CSIB) on the University of California, Berkeley campus, is an analytical facility established as a University education, research, training and service unit beginning in January 2000. Facility operations are overseen by an operations manager and spectroscopist (Wenbo Yang), the faculty director (Todd Dawson), an associate researcher (Stefania Mambelli), and a steering committee. Student assistants help in daily operations and administrative support is provided by the Department of Integrative Biology.

Charisma Acey focuses on access to drinking water and sanitation, environmental justice, poverty reduction, food security, collaborative governance and participatory research methods.

Her projects include:
1) The human rights to water paradigm in urban and peri-urban governance
2) Water utility customers in Kenya and their willingness to pay more to improve sanitation in low-income communities
3) Infrastructure imaginaries, informal urbanism, creativity and ecology in Lagos, Nigeria

Charlotte Smith focuses on impact assessment and evaluation of water systems and public health in urban and rural Mexican and Central American communities. She studies microbial ecology of waterborne pathogens and bacterial endosymbionts of free-living protozoa with a focus on microbial and chemical contamination of water.

Her projects include:
1) A joint Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara (ITESO)/UCB project exploring the environmental, occupational, and behavioral factors that are associated with diarrheal and kidney diseases in rural communities on the bank of Lake Chapala. Three UCB MPH students fulfilled their MPH practicum requirement and launched the project with interdisciplinary ITESO collaborators and local NGOs.
2) A joint project with REACH in Tanzania working on improved water quality and assessing public health relations.

An introduction is given to the science and technologies of producing electricity and transportation fuels from renewable energy resources (biomass, geothermal, solar, wind, and wave). Students will be introduced to quantitative calculations and comparisions of energy technologies together with the economic and political factors affecting the transition from nonrenewable to sustainable energy resources. Mass and energy balances are used to analyze the conversion of energy resources.

Christine Hastorf focuses on social life, political change, agricultural production, foodways, and the methodologies that lead to a better understanding of the past through the study of plant-use. She mainly focuses in the Andean Region of South America

Her current projects related to water include:
1) Implications of changing water levels in Lake Titicaca on surrounding communities
2) An ethnographic study on importance of hail and rain to farmers in the Andean Region

Analysis of steady and unsteady open-channel flow and application to rivers and streams. Examination of mixing and transport in rivers and streams. Effects of channel complexity. Floodplain dynamics and flow routing. Interaction of vegetation and fluid flows. Freshwater and tidal marshes. Sediment transport in rivers, streams, and wetlands. Implications for freshwater ecosystem function.

Hands-on design course in applied fluid mechanics, hydrology and water resources. Course goes beyond basic examples of fluid flow to develop environmental engineering solutions to real-world problems. A class team project is used to (1) explore the design process and project management; and (2) to integrate concepts from hydrology and fluid mechanics with structural, geotechnical and/or transportation engineering for a holistic design approach. Specific project topics vary with offering. Example topics include: engineering for air quality, design for sea-level rise mitigation, and development of alternative water supplies to address scarcity and post-disaster management.

An introduction to key engineered systems (e.g., energy, water supply, buildings, transportation) and their environmental impacts. Basic principles of environmental science needed to understand natural processes as they are influenced by human activities. Overview of concepts and methods of sustainability analysis. Critical evaluation of engineering approaches to address sustainability.

This course will familiarize students with the complex infrastructure used to meet human water demands; competing uses and demands; water and wastewater infrastructure; technologies to enable recovery of water, energy, and other resources from wastewater; supply planning; trends and forecasting; costs, pricing and financing; environmental justice; methods to assess sustainability; regulatory, policy and institutional challenges; and water’s contribution to other sectors (e.g., energy, food, buildings). Innovation, both barriers and opportunities, will be highlighted. California and the U.S. will be emphasized but global challenges will be discussed. Students will study, critique, and recommend improvements for a real-world system.

Quantitative overview of air and water contaminants and their engineering control. Elementary environmental chemistry and transport. Reactor models. Applications of fundamentals to selected current issues in water quality engineering, air quality engineering, air quality engineering, and hazardous waste management.

This laboratory course is designed to accompany the lecture topics in Civil Engineering 111. Each laboratory activity will provide an opportunity to understand key concepts in water and air quality through hands-on experimentation. Laboratory topics include phase partitioning, acid/base reactions, redox reactions, biochemical oxygen demand, absorption, gas transfer, reactor hydraulics, particle destablization, disinfection, and combustion emissions.

The application of principles of inorganic, physical, and dilute solution equilibrium chemistry to aquatic systems, both in the aquatic environment and in water and wastewater treatment processes.

Introduction to principles of groundwater flow, including steady and transient flow through porous media, numerical analysis, pumping tests, groundwater geology, contaminant transport, and design of waste containment systems.

Geosystem engineering design principles and concepts. Fundamental aspects of the geomechanical and geoenvironmental responses of soil are applied to analyze and design civil systems, such as earth dams and levees, earth retention systems, building and bridge foundations, solid-waste fills, and tailings dams. Students form teams to design geotechnical aspects of a civil project and prepare/present a design document. Field trip to a project site.

This course is organized around five real-world large-scale CEE systems problems. The problems provide the motivation for the study of quantitative tools that are used for planning or managing these systems. The problems include design of a public transportation system for an urban area, resource allocation for the maintenance of a water supply system, development of repair and replacement policies for reinforced concrete bridge decks, traffic signal control for an arterial street, scheduling in a large-scale construction project.

Fluid mechanics of the natural water and air environment. Flux equation analyses; unsteady free surface flow; stratified flow; Navier-Stokes equations; boundary layers, jets and plumes; turbulence, Reynolds equations, turbulence modeling; mixing, diffusion, dispersion, and contaminant transport; geophysical flows in atmosphere and ocean; steady and unsteady flow in porous media. Application to environmentally sensitive flows in surface and groundwater and in lower atmosphere.

Application of fluid mechanics to transport and mixing in the environment. Fundamentals of turbulence, turbulent diffusion, and shear dispersion in steady and oscillatory flows and the effects of stratification. Application to rivers, wetlands, lakes, estuaries, the coastal ocean, and the lower atmosphere.

Course addresses fundamental and practical issues in flow and transport phenomena in the vadose zone, which is the geologic media between the land surface and the regional water table. A theoretical framework for modeling these phenomena will be presented, followed by applications in the areas of ecology, drainage and irrigation, and contaminant transport. Hands-on applications using numerical modeling and analysis of real-life problems and field experiments will be emphasized.

Hydrology is presented and analyzed in the context of a continuum extending from the atmosphere to the land surface to the subsurface to free water bodies. In this class, we develop the theoretical frameworks required to address problems that both lie within individual components and span these traditionally separate environments. Starting from a development of the fundamental dynamics of fluid motion, we examine applications within the subsurface, the atmosphere and surface water systems.

Course addresses topics of surface water hydrology, such as processes of water in the atmosphere, over land surface, and within soil; advanced representation and models for infiltration and evapotranspiration processes; partition of water and energy budgets at the land surface; snow and snowmelt processes; applications of remote sensing; flood and drought, and issues related to advanced hydrological modeling. Students will address practical problems and will learn how to use the current operational hydrologic forecasting model, and build hydrological models.

The course provides a framework to address contemporary water-resources problems, and to achieve water security for local areas and broader regions. Students will become aware of critical water-resources issues at local, national and global scales, and learn to formulate solutions for water-resources problems using engineering, natural-science and social-science tools. The main focus is on California and the Western United States, with comparative analysis for other regions.

Comprehensive strategies for the assessment and control of water-related human pathogens (disease-causing microorganisms). Transmission routes and life cycles of common and emerging organisms, conventional and new detection methods (based on molecular techniques), human and animal sources, fate and transport in the environment, treatment and disinfection, appropriate technology, regulatory approaches, water reuse.

Overview of technological development to address global challenges on water-energy nexus and water scarcity. Introduction to emerging technologies, such as membrane filtration, thermal processes, and nanotechnology. Their applications in water purification, wastewater reuse, desalination, and renewable energy production. Quantitative understanding of energy efficiency, transport mechanisms, and interfacial phenomena involved in the above engineered systems. Group projects on selected topic.

Transport and mixing of solutes in water. Focus on rivers, lakes, estuaries, and wetlands, with some discussion of groundwater and the atmosphere. Basic equations of fluid motion will be used to contextualize and/or derive applied empirical equations for use in specific cases of applied environmental engineering practice. Example applications include outfalls, total maximum daily loads, residence time, and longitudinal dispersion.

In this course, we will pursue analysis of long-term records of coastal water levels in the context of sea level rise. We will cover the collection, evaluation, visualization and analysis of time series data using long-term records of sea levels from coastal sites around the world. Specific topics will include extreme events and distributions, frequency-based descriptions, averaging, filtering, harmonic analysis, trend identification, extrapolations, and decision-making under uncertainty.

Hands-on engineering design experience for creating future infrastructure systems. Intelligent infrastructure systems leverage data and computational to enhance sustainability and resilience for smart cities of the future. Student teams identify a challenge with current transportation, energy, water, waste, and/or the built infrastructure. Student teams design and prototype an innovation that solves this problem using maker resources, e.g. 3D printing, laser cutters, and open-source electronics. The project will be executing via the “Design Sprint” process, which is popular in agile development and Silicon Valley. Students present projects to guest judges from industry. Course is an introductory design experience for first-year students.

Examines the subject of water in California, drawing upon scholarly articles, essays, memoir, film, photographs, legislation. In collaboration with the Teaching Library, 50 explores techniques for conducting online archival research and using primary sources. Cosiders a variety of players in the story of water rights in California, including federal and state representatives, conservationists, Native Americans, and Japanese Americans.

This course will examine emerging trends in environmental planning and policy and the basic regulatory framework for environmental planning encountered in the U.S. We will also relate the institutional and policy framework of California and the United States to other nations and emerging international institutions. The emphasis of the course will be on regulating “residuals” as they affect three media: air, water, and land.

Prof. Gerlein-Safdi is an ecohydrologist interested in understanding water-carbon relations within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. She uses an array of methods, from satellite data to process-based modeling, from stable isotopes lab experiments to field measurements.

1) Satellite-based mapping of wetlands to improve methane emissions modeling
2) Understanding the effects of soil warming on vegetation water and carbon fluxes
3) Dew and fog as a water resource for vegetation

Danielle Zoe Rivera is Assistant Professor in the department of Landscape Architecture + Environmental Planning. Her work examines environmental planning, urban design, and community development, including an extensive focus on flooding. Within these spaces, she focuses on issues of environmental justice and climate equity affecting low-income communities. Her current work leverages community-based research and design methods to identify and address environmental injustices affecting low-income communities throughout South Texas, the Bay Area, and Puerto Rico. She has conducted past research in Southeast Michigan, the Philadelphia region, and the Denver region. Rivera directs the Just Environments Lab, which seeks to center concerns of social justice and equity in discussions of the future of our environment.

Current research in the Ackerly lab is focused on studies of climate change impacts on California biodiversity, including distribution modeling, long-term vegetation dynamics and focal studies of selected plant species. Our primary field site is the Pepperwood Preserve, Santa Rosa, CA. Graduate students and post-docs are working on evolution of physiological traits, demography of alpine plants, and species distributions on fine-scale spatial gradients.

David Levine focuses on how industrialization has affected children in newly industrializing nations, particularly Indonesia. He has also conducted evaluations in Cambodia, Ghana, Kenya, and Senegal, exploring the impacts of programs promoting micro-health insurance, hunger alleviation, safe water, and solar ovens.

His projects include:
1) School health curriculums for India
2) Causes and effects of investments in health and education
3) Obstacles to good management

David Sedlak focuses on environmental chemistry, water recycling, contaminant fate in receiving waters, natural treatment systems, and reinvention of urban water systems.

His projects include:
1) The Fate of Trace Organic Compounds in Treatment Wetlands
2) In Situ Chemical Oxidation of Persistent Organic Contaminants

David Zilberman focuses on looking at the adoption of irrigation technology, how climate change increases variability of water supply, and the value of weather and irrigation information.

His projects include:
1) Adoption of drip irrigation technology in California. Showing that it gradually moved from high value to low value crops from areas with a low water holding capacity to high water holding capacity. Droughts and high water prices enhanced diffusion. Public-private collaboration in technology development enabled expanding the uses and value of the technology.
2) Climate Change-water storage and conservation. Identifying conditions when water conservation and storage complement each other, and other situations when they are substitutes.
3) The costs and benefits of the use of California’s irrigation management information system-CIMIS.

Dennis Baldocchi focuses on biometeorology, biosphere-atmosphere trace gas fluxes, ecosystem ecology and climate change. One of the “big questions” he aims to address is what are the influences of weather and climate, the structure and function of plants and ecosystems, biological, physical and chemical properties of soils, and land management and land use change on the trace gas (H2O, CO2, 13CO2, CH4, C5H10) exchange of ecosystems?

His projects includes:
1) Coordinated use of experimental measurements and theoretical models to understand the physical, biological, and chemical processes that control trace gas fluxes between the biosphere and atmosphere and to quantify their temporal and spatial variations. The spatial scales of this work ranges from the dimension of a leaf through the depth of plant canopies and the planetary boundary layer and the horizontal extent of landscapes.

This course will introduce concepts in natural resource management. Segment 1 will cover basic modeling, techniques, and methodology in natural resource mamangement and sustainability. Segment 2 will address genetic resources and agriculture. Segment 3 will cover principles of natural resource management, namely water and air, in the development context. Segment 4 profides an overview of major concepts in the conservation of biodiversity. Students are expected to present research reports based on case studies.

Ellen Bruno focuses on policy issues relevant to California’s agriculture and natural resources. Her work is motivated by climate change and the need for strategies that mitigate the economic costs of drought.

Her current projects include:
1) Potential and effectiveness of water-related policies, which includes understanding how farmers respond to changes in water prices.
2) Functionality of groundwater markets in California
3) Impacts of groundwater quality and salinity on coastal groundwater dependent regions

The story of water development in California provides compelling examples of water politics, the social and environmental consequences of redistributing water, and the relationships between water uses, energy, and climate.This course provides the historical, scientific, legal, institutional, and economic background needed to understand the social and ecological challenges of providing water for California’s growing population, agricultural economy, and other uses – all of which are made more complex by climate change.

This course introduces students to water policy in developing countries. It is a course motivated by the fact that over one billion people in developing countries have no access to safe drinking water, three billion do not have sanitation facilities, and many millions of small farmers do not have reliable water supplies to ensure a healthy crop. Readings and discussions will cover: the problems of water access and use in developing countries; the potential for technological, social, and economic solutions to these problems; the role of institutions in access to water and sanitation; and the pitfalls of the assumptions behind some of today’s popular “solutions.”

This class is an interdisciplinary graduate seminar for students of water policy in developing countries. It is not a seminar on theories and practices of development through the “lens” of water. Rather, it is a seminar motivated by the fact that over 1 billion people in developing countries have no access to safe drinking water, 3 billion don’t have sanitation facilities and many millions of small farmers do not have reliable water supplies to ensure a healthy crop. Readings and discussions will cover: the problems of water access and use in developing countries; the potential for technological, social, and economic solutions to these problems; the role of institutions in access to water and sanitation; and the pitfalls of and assumptions behind some of today’s popular “solutions.”

This course will explore the many manifestations of water and sanitation justice and injustice on interlocking scales (i.e. local, national, transnational) while illustrating analytical ideas connecting to a range of social processes including claims for human rights, deprivation and exclusion, urbanization and infrastructure development, and privatization of land and water. We will look at various case studies in high-income and low-income countries and use key technical and social concepts to examine rights, equity, and justice with respect to water and sanitation. This course partially satisfies requirements for the ERG Summer Minor/Certificate in Sustainability.

This course engages students at the intersection of environmental justice, social justice, and engineering to explore how problems that are commonly defined in technical terms are at their roots deeply socially embedded. Through partnerships with community-based organizations, students are trained to recognize the socio-political nature of technical problems so that they may approach solutions in ways that prioritize social justice. Topics covered include environmental engineering as it relates to air, water, and soil contamination; race, class, and privilege; expertise; ethics; and engaged citizenship. This course cannot be used to complete any engineering technical unit requirements.

The course examines the challenges of innovation beyond new technology development: from the challenges of global expansion, to the issues of unintended consequences of technology and the ability of technology to support or hinder social justice. The course will provide examples in a variety of global locations (e.g., Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa, China, and India), utilizing case examples (written and presented by speakers) that illustrate the challenges faced in a range of fields of engineering and technology, from water and transportation to information and communications technology, and from start-ups to major corporations, government entities, and policy makers.

Lectures on new developments in ocean, offshore, and arctic engineering.

ESW-Berkeley is a diverse mix of students from all majors and backgrounds united by a passion for helping the environment. The chapter works on a variety of projects, in addition to organizing and sponsoring events aimed at education and professional development for members.

Design problems from an ecological perspective. Design studies of relationships among ecosystem, energy, and resource flows, human social and cultural values, and technological variables as they interact to produce the built environment.

This course is intended to provide students with an overview of current thinking about cities and their components (buildings, parks, streets) as ecological and cultural systems. It will provide an introduction to methods for investigating the dynamics of flows and relationships in the built environment and students will gain experience constructing their own narratives as ways of asking and answering questions about human habitat that could shape the future.

This course considers the formation, implementation, and impact of public policies affecting agriculture and the environment. Economic approaches to public lawmaking, including theories of legislation, interest group activity, and congressional control of bureaucracies. Case studies include water allocation, endangered species protection, water quality, food safety, drainage, wetlands, pesticides, and farmworker safety. Emphasis on examples from California.

Urban demand for water; water supply and economic growth; water utility economics; irrigation demand; large water projects; economic impacts of surface water law and institutions; economics of salinity and drainage; economics of groundwater management.

Introduction to the economics of natural resources. Land and the concept of economic rent. Models of optimal depletion of nonrenewable resources and optimal use of renewable resources. Application to energy, forests, fisheries, water, and climate change. Resources, growth, and sustainability.

Introduction to marine geochemistry: the global water cycle; processes governing the distribution of chemical species within the hydrosphere; ocean circulation; chemical mass balances, fluxes, and reactions in the marine environment from global to submicron scales; carbon system equilibrium chemistry and biogeochemistry of fresh and salt walter; applications of natural and anthropogenic stable and radioactive tracers; internal ocean processes.

Current problems in fluid flow, heat flow, and solute transport in the earth. Pressure- and thermal-driven flow, instability, convection, interaction between fluid flow and chemical reactions. Pore pressure; faulting and earthquakes; diagenesis; hydrocarbon migration and trapping; flow-associated mineralization; contaminant problems.

By reading and discussing classical and new contributions in the research literature, we will achieve an understanding of the current state of knowledge and ignorance about glacial geomorphology. The primary questions we will address are: How fast do glaciers erode and what are net magnitudes of late Pleistocene scour? How do the primary erosional processes work and can we model them quantitatively? Do we understand the development of landforms such as cirques, troughs, and asymmetrical hills? What are the important processes of transport and deposition?

An overview of the processes that control water supply to natural ecosystems and human civilization. Hydrologic cycle, floods, droughts, groundwater. Patterns of water use, threats to water quality, effects of global climate change on future water supplies. Water issues facing California.

For undergraduates interested in improving their ability to communicate their scientific knowledge by teaching ocean science in elementary schools or science centers/aquariums. The course will combine instruction in inquiry-based teaching methods and learning pedagogy with six weeks of supervised teaching experience in a local school classroom or the Lawrence Hall of Science with a partner. Thus, students will practice communicating scientific knowledge and receive mentoring on how to improve their presentations.

The tectonics and morphology of the sea floor, the geologic processes in the deep and shelf seas, and the climatic record contained in deep-sea sediments. The course will cover sources and composition of marine sediments, sea-level change, ocean circulation, paleoenvironmental reconstruction using fossils, imprint of climatic zonation on marine sediments, marine stratigraphy, and ocean floor resources.

A review of the mechanics of glacial systems, including formation of ice masses, glacial flow mechanisms, subglacial hydrology, temperature and heat transport, global flow, and response of ice sheets and glaciers. We will use this knowledge to examine glaciers as geomorphologic agents and as participants in climate change.

This course offers multidisciplinary approach to begin answering the question “Why are oceans important to us?” Upon a physical, chemical, and geologic base, we introduce the alien world of sea life, the importance of the ocean to the global carbon cycle, and the principles of ecology with a focus on the important concept of energy flow through food webs. Lectures expand beyond science to include current topics as diverse as music, movies, mythology, biomechanics, policy, and trade.

This course is designed to introduce students to the major sampling systems used in natural resources and ecology. It also introduces students to important sampling and measurement concepts in grassland, forest, wildlife, insect, soil, and water resources. May be taken without laboratory course 102BL.

Presents concept and practical approaches to public and private natural resource management decision making. The focus is on goals, criteria, data, models, and technology for quantifying and communicating the consequences of planning options. A range of contemporary air, soil, wetland, rangeland, forest, social, economic, and ecosystem management problems is addressed.

Identification and ecology of aquatic insects, including their role as indicators of environmental quality.

ntroduction to fish ecology, with particular emphasis on the identification and ecology of California’s inland fishes. This course will expose students to the diversity of fishes found in California, emphasizing the physical (e.g., temperature, flow), biotic (e.g., predation, competition), and human-related (e.g., dams, fisheries) factors that affect the distribution, diversity, and abundance of these fishes.

This course introduces the fundamental physical principles that are necessary to understand the distribution and dynamics of water near the Earth’s surface. A quantitative approach will provide mathematical descriptions of hydrolgical phenomena that will be used for a variety of hydrological applications to river flow hydraulics, flood frequency analysis, ecapotranspirtation from terrestrial ecosystems, groundwater flow, and ecohydrological dynamics. This course will provide an introduction to hydrological processes and data analysis. The purpose of the laboratory is to illustrate in an experimental setting the principles and applications introdcuted in lecture.

Introduction to the science underlying biological and physical environmental problems, including water and air quality, global change, energy, ecosystem services, introduced and endangered species, water supply, solid waste, human population, and interaction of technical, social, and political approaches to environmental management.

In this class we will study basic principles of environmental sustainability from the perspective of water and food security, and apply them to human use of land and land based resources. An analysis of major mechanisms of land degradation and of the major technological advances that are expected to burst food production worldwide will be used as the basis for a discussion on the extent to which the Earth can sustainably feed humanity.

An introduction to the unifying principles and fundamental concepts underlying our scientific understanding of the biosphere. Topics covered include the physical life support system on earth; nutrient cycles and factors regulating the chemical composition of water, air, and soil; the architecture and physiology of life; population biology and community ecology; human dependence on the biosphere; and the magnitude and consequences of human interventions in the biosphere.

Structure and coordination chemistry of natural adsorbent particles in aqueous systems; solute adsorption mechanisms and theoretical models; interparticle forces and colloidal phenomena; applications to biogeochemistry and contaminant hydrology.

Natural history and evolutionary biology of island terrestrial and freshwater organisms, and of marine organisms in the coral reef and lagoon systems will be studied, and the geomorphology of volcanic islands, coral reefs, and reef islands will be discussed. Features of island biogeography will be illustrated with topics linked to subsequent field studies on the island of Moorea (French Polynesia).

Lakes, rivers, wetlands, and estuaries are biologically rich, dynamic, and among the most vital and the most vulnerable of Earth’s ecosystems. Lectures will introduce general topics including the natural history of freshwater biota and habitats, ecological interactions, and ecosystem linkages and dynamics. Broad principles will be illustrated with results from selected recent research publications. Factors affecting resilience or vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to change will be examined. Course requirements: two exams and a short synthesis paper projecting the future states of a freshwater or estuarine ecosystem of the student’s choice under plausible scenarios of local, regional, or global change.

A quantitative introduction to the hydrology of the terrestrial environment including lower atmosphere, watersheds, lakes, and streams. All aspects of the hydrologic cycle, including precipitation, infiltration, evapotranspiration, overland flow, streamflow, and groundwater flow. Chemistry and dating of groundwater and surface water. Development of quantitative insights through problem solving and use of simple models. This course requires one field experiment and several group computer lab assignments.

Distribution, dynamics, and use of water resources in the global environment. Water scarcity, water rights, and water wars. The terrestrial hydrologic cycle. Contemporary environmental issues in water resource management, including droughts, floods, saltwater intrusion, water contamination and remediation, river restoration, hydraulic fracturing, dams, and engineering of waterways. The role of water in ecosystem processes and geomorphology. How water resources are measured and monitored. Basic water resource calculations. Effects of climate change on water quantity, quality, and timing.

The health effects of environmental alterations caused by development programs and other human activities in both developing and developed areas. Case studies will contextualize methodological information and incorporate a global perspective on environmentally mediated diseases in diverse populations. Topics include water management; population change; toxics; energy development; air pollution; climate change; chemical use, etc.

This graduate course will combine formal lectures and discussion, with the overall goal of exposing students to general concepts in freshwater ecology. We will discuss a broad range of topics including freshwater environments and biota, natural selection and adaptive evolution, food webs and trophic cascades, cross-ecosystem linkages, and social-ecological resilience of freshwater ecosystems under global change. Upper division undergraduates are welcome, with permission of the instructors.

Introduction to California geography, environment, and society, past and future climates, and the potential impacts of 21st-century climate change on ecosystems and human well-being. Topics include fundamentals of climate science and the carbon cycle; relationships between human and natural systems, including water supplies, agriculture, public health, and biodiversity; and the science, law, and politics of possible solutions that can reduce the magnitude and impacts of climate change.

G. Mathias Kondolf focuses on fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, river restoration, environmental planning, environmental science, managing flood-prone lands, urban rivers, and sediment in rivers and reservoirs.

His projects include:
1) The social connectivity of urban rivers, analyzing the city-river relationships over time and current urban river revitalization efforts
2) The social life of the sediment balance, examining river-basin impacts of dams on downstream rivers and deltas from both geomorphological and environmental history perspectives
3) Strategic dam planning for improved tradeoffs between hydropower generation and environment.

This course explores oceanic connections, movements, livelihoods, developments and imaginations in the modern world. We read the oceanic novel Moby Dick and think across themes including the geography of the Mediterranean, the riotous Atlantic, the imperial Pacific, the anticolonial Caribbean and the Muslim Indian Ocean; and we look at ports, containers, oceanic infrastructure and precarious marine livelihoods today. We read thinkers from our oceanic planet to imagine an oceanic way of thinking.

Understanding the physical characteristics of the Earth’s surface, and the processes active on it, is essential for maintaining the long-term health of the environment, and for appreciating the unique, defining qualities of geographic regions. In this course, we build an understanding of global tectonics, rivers, hillslopes, and coastlines and discover how these act in concert with the underlying geologic framework to produce the magnificent landscapes of our planet. Through our review of formative processes, we learn how physical landscapes change and are susceptible to human modifications, which are often unintentional.

In this course we review the physical landscapes and surface processes in extreme environments: hot arid regions, glacial and periglacial landscapes, and karst terrane. Using this knowledge, plus an understanding of tectonics and temperate watersheds (gained from prerequisite courses), we explore how unique combinations of geomorphic processes acting on tectonic and structural provinces have created the spectacular and diverse landscapes of North America. Regions to be explored include the Colorado Plateau, Sierra Nevada, North Cascades, Northern and Southern Rockies, Great Plains, Appalachian Highlands, and Mississippi Delta.

Climate impacts and risk analysis is the study of weather-related catastrophes such as heat waves, floods, droughts, fires, and tropical cyclones, and builds on material from GEOG 149A: Climates of the World.
We will review how large-scale climate and local weather patterns set up, learn detection and attribution to climate change, risk probabilities and the types of impacts incurred.

This lecture-lab course is focused on Earth system remote sensing applications, including a survey of methods and an accompanying lab. This first part of the course will cover general principles, image acquisition and interpretation, and analytical approaches. The second part will cover global change remote sensing applications that will include terrestrial ecosystems, Earth sciences, the hydrosphere, and human land-use.

The goals of this introductory Earth System Science course are to achieve a scientific understanding of important problems in global environmental change and to learn how to analyze a complex system using scientific methods. Earth System Science is an interdisciplinary field that describes the cycling of energy and matter between the different spheres (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, and lithosphere) of the earth system. Under the overarching themes of human-induced climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and biodiversity loss, we will explore key concepts of solar radiation, plate tectonics, atmospheric and oceanic circulation, and the history of life on Earth.

Distribution, dynamics, and use of water resources in the global environment. Water scarcity, water rights, and water wars. The terrestrial hydrologic cycle. Contemporary environmental issues in water resource management, including droughts, floods, saltwater intrusion, water contamination and remediation, river restoration, hydraulic fracturing, dams, and engineering of waterways. The role of water in ecosystem processes and geomorphology. How water resources are measured and monitored. Basic water resource calculations. Effects of climate change on water quantity, quality, and timing.

A quantitative introduction to the hydrology of the terrestrial environment including lower atmosphere, watersheds, lakes, and streams. All aspects of the hydrologic cycle, including precipitation, infiltration, evapotranspiration, overland flow, streamflow, and groundwater flow. Chemistry and dating of groundwater and surface water. Development of quantitative insights through problem solving and use of simple models. This course requires one field experiment and several group computer lab assignments.

Hannah Stuart focuses on electromagnetical design, skin contact conditions, dexterous manipulation, field robotics and tactile sensing and haptics. .

Her projects include:
1) Human-portable ROV tool development for remote coral tissue sampling
2) Robotic marine systems inspired by fish and arthropods
3) Robotic skin design for grasping and manipulation in wet environments

This course introduces the arts of Asia, premodern to modern-contemporary, in relation to the ecocritical humanities. It surveys specific visual and material objects, structures and sites, and performances in Asia in interrelationship with planetary geo/biological systems, culture, and the politics of Humanity and Nature. Its topics include the fundamental materiality of artworks and responses to water, geology, and biology as much as ideas and beliefs; hand and machine-working of earthly material; nonhuman species in human cultures, in terms of ecology as well as representation; responses to the accelerating climate cataclysm; and the meeting of the sciences and the arts in recognition of our multispecies planetary inter-reliance.

Holly Doremus focuses on environmental law, natural resource law, and law and science. Eight of Doremus’s articles in the legal literature have been selected for reprinting in the Land Use and Environment Law Review, an annual compilation of the year’s leading works. Her recent publications include Water War in the Klamath Basin: Macho Law, Combat Biology, and Dirty Politics (Island Press, 2008) (with A. Dan Tarlock); “Scientific and Political Integrity in Environmental Policy,” Texas Law Review (2008); “Data Gaps in Natural Resource Management: Sniffing for Leaks Along the Information Pipeline,” Indiana Law Journal (2008); and “Precaution, Science, and Learning While Doing in Natural Resource Management,” Washington Law Review (2007).

One of her projects includes:
1) Hydropower relicensing in California

HADSA (Housing and Dining Sustainability Advocates) works directly with the residential halls and Cal Dining to help students and staff increase their awareness of their footprint and decrease their environmental impact. Through student-led advocacy, auditing, and peer education, HADSA strives to make sustainability accessible to the UC Berkeley community, improve housing and dining infrastructure, and work towards more ethical and environmentally sound practices. HADSA works on projects that progress efforts towards energy and water conservation, food waste reduction, solid waste reduction, food literacy, and gardening. HADSA offers internship opportunities to meal plan holders throughout the year.

This course focuses on a survey of physiological approaches to understanding plant-environment interactions from the functional perspective. Lectures cover physiological adaptation; limiting factors; resources acquisition/allocation; photosynthesis, carbon, energy balance; water use and relations; nutrient relations; linking physiology; stable isotope applications in ecophysiology; stress physiology; life history and physiology; evolution of physiological performance; physiology population, community, and ecosystem levels.

Course focuses on principles and applications of stable isotope chemistry as applied to the broad science of ecology. Lecture topics include principles of isotope behavior and chemistry, and isotope measurements in the context of terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecological processes and problems. Students participate in a set of laboratory exercises involving preparation of samples of choice for isotopic analyses, the use of the mass spectrometer and optical analysis systems, and the anlaysis of data.

Inez Fung focuses on climate change and atmospheric science with particular attention towards geophysical fluid dynamics and large-scale numerical modeling, remote sensing of earth systems, atmosphere-ocean interactions, and atmosphere-biosphere interactions. Additionally, she is the co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment.

Her current projects center around:
1) Changes in East Asian monsoon precipitation
2) Subsurface water dynamics and tree resilience/mortality to droughts

InFEWS (Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems) supports a new generation of students working at the critical juncture of food, energy, and water. These students will master the interdisciplinary skills needed to create actionable and impactful research that is transferable from the lab to the field at scale and to ultimately make real lives better. A small number of stipends ($34k stipend, plus tuition and fees) are available for selected eligible students, who are eligible under NSF rules (US citizen or permanent resident). Applications are reviewed in early February.

Principles of microbial, animal, and plant population ecology, illustrated with examples from marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats. Consideration of the roles of physical and biological processes in structuring natural communities. Observational, experimental, and theoretical approaches to population and community ecology will be discussed. Topics will include quantitative approaches relying on algebra, graph analysis, and elementary calculus. Discussion section will review recent literature in ecology.

Iryna Dronova focuses on diverse aspects of landscape ecology and its potential to inform sustainable, multi-functional landscape-designs, and decision-making in environmental planning. Her research looks into wetlands, wetland restoration, remote sensing, GIS & spatial analysis.

Her projects include:
1) Using remotely-sensed phenology to monitor biodiversity and ecosystem services in wetlands
2) Cost-effective tools for wetland restoration monitoring from local to regional scales

Isha Ray focuses on water, sanitation and development; water and gender; technology and development; and common property resources. Her research projects focus on access to water and sanitation for the rural and urban poor, and on the role of technology in improving livelihoods.

Her projects include:
1) Governance of Wastewater Reuse systems in India with an emphasis on the institutional aspects of water reuse in rural regions.
2) Central Valley of California projects focuses around assessing the affordability of drinking water in rural communities and best methods for supplying drinking water. Additionally, a separate project is conducting field-trial arsenic mitigation methods and systems implementation in historically marginalized, rural communities.
3) A Joint ongoing project in collaboration with China CDC and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University conducting microbial bacteriology studies on rural drinking water along with behavioral interventions of safe drinking water methods. Emphasis is on evaluating key vulnerabilities of water systems and expanding safe drinking water methods from rural to institution (hospitals, schools) settings.

Jack Colford focuses on waterborne infectious diseases in domestic, developing country and recreational water settings. He specializes in large-field randomized control trials at the individual and community level.

His projects include:
1) WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hand Washing) Intervention analysis. Interventions have been carried out in rural Kenya and Bangladesh which include the implementation of chlorine based water treatments, hand washing stations with community training, double pit latrines, and Enov’Nutributter supplements.
2) Recreational water studies on gastrointestinal disease transmission and infection among users including swimmers, surfers, and beach use.

Jenn’s research focuses on the economic and environmental implications of complex infrastructure systems. For over 15 years, she has studied innovative and integrated water systems, specifically evaluating tradeoffs and synergies between different water-related functions (conveyance and treatment of potable water, recycled water, wastewater, and stormwater) and understanding their interdependencies with other economic sectors, such as energy and food. She is an expert in conducting life-cycle cost assessment (LCCA) and life-cycle assessment (LCA). She has also worked as an engineering consultant, gaining experience designing, operating, and managing construction of environmental remediation systems.

Jill focuses on geomicrobiology and environmental microbiology where her group studies how microorganisms shape, and are shaped by, their natural environments. The research group studies microbial communities, primarily using cultivation-independent approaches such as genomics (metagenomics) and community proteomics. They work on microbial dissolution and precipitation of minerals, the structure, properties, and reactivity of nanoparticles (many of which are formed by microorganisms), microbial ecology, and microbial evolution. Their current projects are tied to location studies in aquatic environments at:

1) Iron Mountain, California
2) Angelo Reserve, California
3) Rifle and East River sites, Colorado
4) Crystal Geyser, Utah

Junko Habu focuses on using a theoretical framework of historical ecology to investigate the importance of food and subsistence diversity, social networks and local autonomy for understanding the resilience of socioeconomic systems.

Her projects include:
1. Mountains, Rivers and the Ocean: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Education in the Hei River Valley
2. Ethno-historical and ethnographic research of small-scale fishing communities in northern Japan

Justin Remais focuses on advancing methods for estimating the dynamics and spread of infectious diseases in changing environments, such as those associated with rapid urbanization, industrialization, changes in water resources, and an increasingly variable climate. His Interests lie in: Environmental dynamics of infectious diseases, Global environmental change and health, Methodological issues in the projection of infectious disease risks in response to environmental change, Optimizing infectious disease surveillance in low- and middle-income countries, Mathematical and statistical modeling of infectious disease transmission, and Dynamics of waterborne and vector-borne infections in rapidly changing environments

His current projects include:
1) Hydroclimatic determinants of waterborne diseases in tropical settings
2) Influence of drought and extreme rainfall on dust-borne infections in California
3) Hydroclimatology’s role in determining the epidemiology and ecology of vector-borne diseases in urban areas.

Kara Nelson focuses on addresses innovative strategies to improve the sustainability of urban water infrastructure, including technologies for potable and non-potable water reuse, nutrient recovery, decentralized systems, intermittent water supply, household water treatment, and affordable sanitation. In particular, Dr. Nelson’s research focuses on the control of waterborne pathogens, including mechanisms of pathogen inactivation and new detection methods.

Her projects include:
1) A WASH project looking at impact of improved sanitation interventions on transmission of enteric pathogens from human and animal sources through a randomized controlled trial in rural Bangladesh
2) Influence of intermittent water supply (IWS) on the diversity and dynamics of the IWS microbiome.
3) The impacts of DPR systems on microbial water quality through research on methods of advanced microbial water quality assessment.

Kristina Hill focuses on urban ecology and hydrology in relationship to physical design and social justice issues, adapting urban districts and shore zones to the new challenges associated with climate change, adaptation and coastal design.

Her projects include:
1) Urban water system design that supports salmon health
2) Potential for designs to help protect coastal communities as sea levels rise internationally
3) Adaptation and coastal design in the San Francisco Bay Area

My research efforts emphasize environmental change of polar regions, with a focus on glaciologic problems. The choice of polar glaciology reflects the unique and powerful contributions that this subdiscipline makes to environmental change research. Ice core reconstructions of environmental history offer the most comprehensive, varied, and high-resolution view yet achieved of past environments. The ice sheets themselves are a major control on global sea level and albedo, and on high-latitude atmospheric and oceanic circulations, and on physical landscape characteristics. No other topographic features of this size and importance are changeable on such short time scales.

I use a quantitatively rigorous and novel blend of geophysical and geochemical techniques to address questions that are important in this context: How have climatic temperature and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations covaried in the past? What is the tempo and magnitude of climate changes in polar regions? What determines the isotopic composition of precipitation? How have the great ice sheets changed in the past, and how will they change in the future? How do they flow? How are microphysical processes in ice manifest at the scale of whole glaciers and ice sheets?

The puzzles that motivate me are: What makes landscapes evolve distinct patterns? How can we restore or manage landscapes to optimize particular functions? How do physical-biological interactions control large-scale geomorphology and biogeochemical processing? Water flows as a theme through this research as one of the components of the environment most critical to life and, indeed, perhaps the single most dominant factor sculpting the geography of Earth’s natural and human landscapes. Water is also one of the features of the physical environment most sensitive to global climate change and human management. In my research I try to tease apart the direct and indirect ways in which hydrologic changes impact ecosystems, and, conversely, how those ecological changes impact hydrology. It is only through a firm understanding of these dynamic interactions that we can predict future change in the hydrological and ecological components of landscapes.

Wastewater, Water Reuse, Water Systems, Drinking Water, Sanitation, Pollution, Rural, South Asia, Asia, China, India, North America, California, Water Security, Technology, Nutrient Management, Civil Society, Government, Economy, Development, Resource Distribution

This course presents an overview of relevant hydrologic, hydraulic, and geomorphic processes, to provide the planner and ecologist with insight to incorporate these processes into the planning process and coordinate with specialists in the field of hydrology. Relevant government regulations and policies are also reviewed. The course is not intended to duplicate more specialized courses offered in such fields as engineering hydrology, coastal engineering, or geology, but rather to provide an integrated understanding. The course takes a process- and field-based approach to hydrology, and emphasizes interdisciplinary perspectives.

This course is an introduction to issues of sustainability in the designed landscape and in our cities. It includes environmental history as well as contemporary social, environmental and political issues surrounding sustainable design and activism. The course stresses motives and values expressed through environmental design at various scales – from neighborhood to global and examines problems affecting healthy environments and their solutions. Students study the need for protection and restoration of healthy ecological systems within the design of cities and landscapes and discuss ways to enable these systems to thrive. Readings and discussions focus on means to evaluate, create and advocate for healthy, sustainable environments.

Through lectures, studio problems, research projects, and discussion, this course will explore the challenge and potential incorporating ecological factors in urban contexts. The course focuses on the interaction of landscape science (hydrology, geology, etc.) with the necessities and mechanisms of the human environment (urban design, transportation, economics, etc.). Lectures and research projects will particularly emphasize innovative and forward thinking solutions to the ecological problems of the human environment. Throughout the semester, reading and discussion sessions will highlight the connections between the broader concerns of the global ecological crisis and landscape design and planning.

With the increasing popularity of river and stream restoration in the US and abroad, restoration has attracted supporters and practitioners from a variety of fields. However, river and stream restoration is not a distinct discipline in itself, but rather involves the application of sound geomorphological, hydrologic, and ecological science to the problem of restoring ecosystem functions to a river system. The purpose of this course is to explore the field of river and stream restoration, with particular emphasis on geomorphic, hydrologic, and ecological processes essential to the healthy functioning (and thus ecological restoration) of river systems, the role of scientific information in project planning and design, and the post-project evaluation of project performance.

Environmental planning intersects with many other disciplines and incorporates a very wide array of sub disciplines. Ranging from city planning, land use planning, landscape architecture, forest management, waste water management, wilderness preservation, urban sustainability and many more.

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen focuses on environmental microbiology and ecology, biotransformation and fate of environmental and wastewater contaminants, and innovative molecular and isotopic techniques for studying microbial ecology of communities involved in wastewater treatment and bioremediation communities. Specifically, her research focuses on the application of omics-based molecular tools and isotopic techniques to understand and optimize the bioremediation of emerging and conventional environmental contaminants by naturally occurring microorganisms and to facilitate beneficial nutrient removal from wastewater.

Her projects include:
1) Trichloroethene Remediation, specifically investigating how dichlorination communities respond to the changes in these conditions by constructing various Dhc-containing consortia in batch and completely mixed flow reactors.
2) Characterization of the fate and biotransformation of fluorochemicals in aqueous film forming forms (AFFF)
3) Nitrogen Removal from Wastewater by Anammox

Energy is one of the main drivers of civilization. Today we are at the precipice of what many hope will be a major paradigm shift in energy production and use. Two transitions are needed. On the one hand, we must find ways to extend the benefits of our existing energy system to the impoverished people living in the developing world while continuing to provide these benefits to the people of the developed world. On the other hand, we must completely overhaul the existing system to fight climate change and other forms of air and water pollution. Are these shifts truly within our reach? Can we achieve both simultaneously? If so, how? This Big Ideas course will grapple with these questions using an interdisciplinary systems approach.

Luke Macaulay focuses on rangeland planning & policy; wildlife management; range management; geospatial analyses; water management.

His projects include:
1) Drilling in Drought: How Farm Size and Crop Mix Correlate with Groundwater Exploration During California’s 2012-2016 Drought
2) Why is the California’s lowest value crop the third largest user of the state’s agricultural water? The case of irrigated pasture
3) Using remote sensing to monitor remote surface water ponds in the Kingdom of Jordan

Reza Alam’s research currently pertains to Theoretical Fluid Dynamics, Nonlinear Wave Mechanics, Ocean and Coastal Waves Phenomena, Ocean Renewable Energy (Wave, Tide and Offshore Wind Energy), Nonlinear Dynamical Systems, and Fluid Flow Control

Maggi Kelly’s lab group’s motto is “mapping for a changing California”, and they use a range of geospatial data and analytics – from spatial modeling, remote sensing, drones, lidar, historical archives, surveys, participatory mapping, and the field – to gain insights about how and why California landscapes are changing, and what that change means for those who live on, use, and manage our lands.

Manuela Girotto focuses on hydrologic data assimilation and remote sensing.

Her projects include:
1) Hydrologic response and interaction between natural and human driven processes
2) Land Surface remote sensing and muti-senor, -spectrum, -resolution data assimilation
3) Hydrology contribution to sea level change
4) Snow hydrology

Mary Firestone’s research involves the fundamental understanding of soil microbial ecology, and applications to problems such as global change, sustainability and biodegradation. Current research interests include: bacteria/soil interactions and interactions between plant roots and soil microorganisms.

Maximilian Auffhammer focuses on forecasting greenhouse gas emissions, impacts of air pollution on agriculture, microeconomic theory, economics of climate change and econometrics.

His projects includes:
1) Adverse Reproductive Outcomes in a Population Exposed to Perfluorinated Compounds in Drinking Water (with Martha Rogers, Gina Waterfield, Philippe Grandjean, and David Sunding, 2018);
2) Turning water into jobs: The impact of surface water deliveries on farm employment and fallowing in California’s San Joaquin Valley (with Dina Gorensteyn and David Sunding, 2018);
3) Forecasting Urban Water Consumption in California: Rethinking Model Evaluation (with Steven Buck, Hilary Soldati, and David Sunding, 2018).

Dr. Maya Carrasquillo (pronouns: she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley and the PI of the JEDI (L)ab. Her research interests include sustainable and equitable urban water infrastructure, food-energy-water systems (FEWs), community-engagement and citizen science in decision-making, and environmental/social justice.

Her projects include
1. Culturally-relevant and multifunctional green infrastructure in coastal Bay area communities
2. Exploring opportunities to envision climate justice scenarios for adaptation using AR/VR with Bay Area youth
3. Exploring anti-racism and social justice in environmental engineering curriculum

To provide exposure of the field of ocean engineering, arctic engineering and related subject areas to students with the intention to show the broad and interdisciplinary nature of this field, particularly recent or new developments.

This course covers major aspects of offshore engineering including ocean environment, loads on offshore structures, cables and mooring, underwater acoustics and arctic operations.

This course examines high-Reynolds number flows, including their stability, their waves, and the influence of rotating and stratification as applied to geophysical and astrophysical fluid dynamics as well as to engineering flows. Examples of problems studies include vortex dynamics in planetary atmospheres and protoplanetary disks, jet streams, and waves (Rossby, Poincare, inertial, internal gravity, and Kelvin) in the ocean and atmosphere.

Meg Mills-Novoa is an assistant professor with a joint appointment to the Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy , and Management and the Energy and Resources Group. As a human-environment geographer, her research focuses on the enduring impact of climate change adaptation projects. To study these initiatives, she uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, from spatial analysis and quantitative surveys to archival research and interviews. She collaborates closely with communities and practitioners to improve the design, implementation, and outcomes of adaptation projects that promote inclusion and equity.

1) Sustainability of Water Sector Adaptation Projects across the Andes
2) Efficacy of Climate Change Adaptation Interventions in the Water Sector
3) Social Movements and the Emerging Hydropower Boom

The Merchants Exchange Scholarship Fund is looking for students pursuing an education to begin or advance careers in the Maritime Industry and/ or international trade. Also available if majoring in a related field, like logistics, supply chain management, marine fabrication, engineering, naval architecture, marine science or more. Applications open to students at 2-year and 4-year programs, graduate programs, and programs approved by the US Coast Guard.

Conducted in cooperation with University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and American University of Beirut (AUB), this project- and case- based virtual exchange course will offer students the unique opportunity to learn about issues surrounding global health and conflict in the Middle East and North Africa while participating in a meaningful cross-cultural exchange. Looking at a range of topics related to the subject, the course will be comprised primarily of expert lectures, case studies, and an interdisciplinary group project, in which UC Berkeley students team up with medical students at UCSF and public health graduate students at AUB. Offered through Interdisciplinary Social Science Programs.

Michael Kiparsky focuses on water resources policy and management; science-policy interface; translational research and synthesis

His projects include:
1) Evaluating and Improving the Relationships Between Regulation and Innovation in the Wastewater Sector
2) Developing Water Data Systems to Improve Decision Making
3) Recharge Net Metering to Enhance Groundwater Sustainability
4) Addressing Institutional Vulnerabilities in California’s Water Allocation Institutions
5) Evaluating the Benefits for and Pathways to Small Water System Consolidations

Michael Manga focuses on a variety of topics across the Earth and Planetary Department including hydrogeology and human-induced earthquakes, groundwater, rivers, geysers, woody-debris flow in water systems, and extra-planetary sources of water.

His projects include:
1) An extra-planetary project that studies planets made of ice that have oceans under them and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, as well as past water-systems and current water on Mars.
2) A project on studying the effects of wood on water systems, looking into the effect woody debris has on the flow of systems and how it alters river channels. The Pacific North-West is a main study area for the research, while it is in the early stages of research in California.
3) An ongoing project to study the effects of earthquakes on water systems. His study on human-induced earthquakes and fracking includes looking at the amount of water used to achieve the desired products, as well as how the wastewater is disposed of. Additionally, he has been monitoring earthquake activity within the East Bay where he measures the fluctuations and increases on the flow of water at the Alum Rock springs.

Michael Mascarenhas focuses on water access and environmental justice, water charity and affordability, Indigenous water rights, and human right to water.

His projects include:
1) Thirsty for Environmental Justice. Flint, Detroit, and the War over Michigan’s Water.
2) Previous Projects:
a. Where the Waters Divide. Neoliberalism, White Privilege, and Environmental Racism in Canada (Lexington Books, 2015)
b. New Humanitarianism and the Crisis of Charity: Good Intentions on the Road to Help (Indiana University Press, 2017)

Nathan Sayre focuses on semi-arid rangelands, especially in the southwestern United States: how they have changed, how they have been understood and managed, and the politics and economics surrounding land use change, fire restoration, and endangered species conservation. His interests include ranching and pastoralism, rangeland ecology and management, history of range science, endangered species, scale, the state, Western environmental history, local ecological knowledge, conservation and urbanization/land use change

One of his projects includes:
1) The California megaflood of 1861-62 and the subsequent drought

Headquartered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, the National Alliance for Water Innovation, or NAWI, was selected in 2019 to support the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy-Water Desalination Hub. Along with co-founding laboratories Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, NAWI brings together a world-class team of industry and academic partners to examine the critical technical barriers and research needed to radically lower the cost and energy of desalination.

NAWI’s focus is on early-stage research on desalination and associated water-treatment technologies to secure affordable and energy-efficient water supplies for the United States from nontraditional water sources. Our five-year research program will be guided by an annual roadmapping process designed to engage stakeholders from the water-treatment and water-use ecosystem, and by an annual request-for-proposal process to solicit research ideas through a competitive, peer-reviewed evaluation and selection process.

The NWRI fellowship program awards funds to graduate students who are conducting water research in the United States.

Multi-barrier concept; groundwater hydrology, mathematical modeling of mass transport in heterogeneous media, source term for far-field model; near-field chemical environment, radionuclide release from waste solids, modeling of radionuclide transport in the near field, effect of temperature on repository performance, effect of water flow, effect of geochemical conditions, effect of engineered barrier alteration; overall performance assessment, performance index, uncertainty associated with assessment, regulation and standards.

Fluid dynamics and heat transfer; thermal and hydraulic analysis of nuclear reactors; two-phase flow and boiling; compressible flow; stress analysis; energy conversion methods.

Paolo D’Odorico investigates the role of water in the dynamics of ecosystems (ecohydrology) and societies (social hydrology). His research focuses on the nexus existing among water, food, and energy and investigates patterns of globalization and inequality in the distribution of natural resources that are crucial to meet food and energy needs.

His projects include:
1. Food-energy-water nexus: investigating multiple components of the food-energy-water nexus, the resilience of the global water and food systems, and the options humanity has to meet food and energy security with the limited renewable water resources of the planet
2. Dryland ecohydrology: evaluating the role of ecohydrological processes in biotic-abiotic interactions in dryland ecosystems
3. Desertification: investigating feedback mechanisms and their possible enhancement by interactions with socio-economic drivers.

The course covers monitoring, control and regulatory policy of microbial, chemical and radiological drinking water contaminants. Additional subjects include history and iconography of safe water, communicating risks to water consumers and a bottled water versus tap water taste test as part of the discussion on aesthetic water quality parameters. A field trip to a local water treatment plant in included.

The course covers monitoring, control and regulatory policy of microbial, chemical and radiological drinking water contaminants. Additional subjects include history and iconography of safe water, communicating risks to water consumers and a bottled water versus tap water taste test as part of the discussion on aesthetic water quality parameters.

Peggy Lemaux focuses on both basic and applied research focused primarily on cereal crops, like sorghum, wheat, rice and barley. The objectives of these studies are to better understand crop plants and to use that knowledge to improve their performance and quality. More recently efforts with colleagues have focused on bioenergy – especially in the versatile feedstock, sorghum.

One of her projects includes:
1) “Epigenetic Control of Drought Response in Sorghum” (EPICON)
A $12.3 million Department of Energy Biological and Environmental Research-funded project to examine how the drought-tolerant cereal crop, sorghum, survives water loss.
Researchers expect to develop better predictions about how sorghum and other cereal crops are affected by future climate scenarios, leading to approaches to improve crop growth and production under water-limiting conditions.

Dr. Peter S. Fiske is the Director of the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI). NAWI is the U.S. Dept of Energy’s 5-year, $110M early-stage applied research program to drive down the cost and energy associated with desalination and water reuse. Fiske also oversees the Water-Energy Resilience Research Institute (WERRI) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. WERRI’s goal is to orient and align the water-related research programs at LBNL to address critical gaps in the reliability, efficiency and sustainability of water-energy systems in California and the nation.

Changing patterns of agriculture in relation to population growth, the biology and social impact of plant disease, genetic engineering of plants: a thousand years of crop improvement and modern biotechnology, interactions between plants and the environment, and effects of human industrial and agricultural activity on plant ecosystems. Knowledge of the physical sciences is neither required nor assumed.

General biology of freshwater and marine algae, highlighting current research and integrating phylogeny, ecology, physiology, genetics, and molecular biology.

A study of physiological and biochemical processes in higher plants, including water relations, ion transport, and hormone physiology; photosynthesis (light utilization and carbon assimilation), nitrogen and sulfur metabolism, and plant-specific biosynthetic pathways.

Although often unseen, microbes are everywhere! This course covers the role that microbes, including archaea, bacteria, protists and fungi, play in terrestrial, marine and extreme environments and their effect on the geochemistry of the earth. In addition, we will explore the profound effects of microbes on human and plant health and how microbes have changed the course of human history.

ReNUWIt (Re-Inventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure) is an interdisciplinary, multi-institution engineering research center. Our goal is to change the ways we manage urban water.

ReNUWIt is the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Re-inventing the Nation’s urban Water Infrastructure. Launched in 2011, ReNUWIt is the first ERC dedicated to civil infrastructure and water systems. ReNUWIt encompasses a diverse team of researchers who collaborate with entrepreneurs and practitioners on innovative solutions for urban water infrastructure challenges.

Roger Bales focuses on California’s efforts to build the knowledge base and implement policies that adapt our water supplies, critical ecosystems and economy to the impacts of climate warming. He works with leaders in state agencies, elected officials, federal land managers, water leaders, non-governmental organizations, and other key decision makers on developing climate solutions for California.

His projects include:
1) Director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, which focuses on researching rapid population growth, competition for natural resources, air and water and soil pollution, climate change and competing land uses in the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada region.
2) Director of the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory, which looks at research on critical zone processes with ongoing investigations and measurements at several sites on the western slope of the southern Sierra Nevada.
3) Director of the UC Water Security and Sustainability Research Initiative which focuses on strategic research to build the knowledge base for better water source management.

Ronald Cohen focuses on developing and applying new experimental and modeling strategies for understanding the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere now and in the past and for predicting future changes. He explores the chemical formation of aerosol within the atmosphere and the kinetics of cloud formation.

His projects include:
1) The relationship between evaporation kinetics and the formation of cloud droplets
2) Chemical effects on the speed of cloud droplet growth
3) Role nitrogen oxides (NOx) play in the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA)

Established in 1951, Sagehen Creek Field Station is a research and teaching facility of the University of California at Berkeley located in the Central Sierra Nevada north of Truckee, California.

The station is embedded within the 9,000-acre Sagehen Experimental Forest, which is cooperatively and collaboratively managed in a partnership between the University of California, the US Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station and the Tahoe National Forest.

Sagehen serves as the hub of a broader regional network of research areas known as the Central Sierra Field Research Stations. CSFRS also includes the Central Sierra Snow Lab, Onion Creek Experimental Forest, North Fork Association Lands and the Chickering American River Reserve.

Sally Thompson focuses on ecohydrology, surface hydrology, and nonlinear dynamics.

Her projects include:
1) Eel River Critical Zone Observatory
2) Effects of reversing fire suppression on Sierra Nevada hydrology – Illilouette Creek Basin
3) Unmanned Aerial Systems for Water Observations
4) Reconstructing 50 years of human-induced hydrologic change in the Arkavathy Basin, Karnataka, India
5) Exploring land use impacts on hydrology in the Cerrado-Amazon transition zone, Brazil

Slav Hermanowicz focuses on biological water and wastewater treatment processes, biofilms and their development, analysis of full-scale treatment reactors, nutrient control, and sustainable development.

His projects include:
1) Deammonification of anaerobic sludge digestate
2) Better drinking water quality in storage
3) Solar optics-based active pasteurization for greywater reuse and integrated thermal building control
4) Physics of foaming in anaerobic digesters
5) Sustainable development: physical and moral issues
6) New sources of water; toward a definition of sustainability

Stephanie Carlson focuses on freshwater fish ecology, evolutionary ecology, and conservation of freshwaters. The research aims to illustrate how evolution and ecology interact to shape wild populations and influence their persistence, particularly those exposed to anthropogenic (human) influences.

Her projects include:
1) Evolution (and loss) of biodiversity among salmon populations
2) Ecological and evolutionary impacts of management (water, fishery, hatchery, protected area)
3) Impacts of drought and climate change on streams

Steven Glaser focuses on laboratory earthquakes and nanoseismology, wireless sensors networks, snow water hydrology, internet of water, geophysics and wave propagation, geothermal energy, rock mechanics.

His projects include:
1) Forest hydrology of snow melt and water balance in the Sierra Nevada.
2) Berkeley Mote to monitor the seismic safety of wood-frame houses to measuring the seismic response of the Masada mountain in Israel
3) Environmental hazards at Chinese historical sites such as Dunhuang

Surfrider Foundation Club is a grassroots organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the world’s oceans, waves, and beaches through engagement with environmental issues that threaten coastal ecosystems.

Susan Hubbard focuses on development and use of advanced characterization approaches to provide new insights about terrestrial hydrological and biogeochemical functioning relevant to contaminant remediation, carbon cycling, water resources, and subsurface energy challenges.

Her projects include:
1) Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area – Developing a predictive understanding of how mountainous watersheds retain and release water and the implications for downgradient water discharge and biogeochemical cycles, particularly in response to floods, droughts and other episodic through decadal perturbations. The project is focused in a headwaters catchment in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
2) Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment (NGEE) -Artic (Improved prediction of ecosystem feedback to climate in vulnerable Arctic systems through iterative and multi-scale observations, experiments and simulations).

Ted Grantham focuses on freshwater ecology, surface water hydrology, water resources management.

His projects include:

1) Eco-hydrology of intermittent streams
2) Water Management for the environment
3) Freshwater ecosystem vulnerability to climate change
4) Environmental impacts of cannabis production

California Sea Grant’s State Fellows Program provides a unique educational opportunity for graduate students who are interested both in marine resources and in the policy decisions affecting those resources. The program matches highly motivated and qualified graduate students with hosts in municipal, state and federal agencies in California for a 12-month paid fellowship.

In the past, Sea Grant Fellows have been assigned to the California Ocean Resources Management Program, California Ocean Protection Council, California Ocean Science Trust, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, NOAA Coastal Services Center, and Delta Science Program, among others. Selection of finalists is made by the California Sea Grant College Program, and assignments are decided in consultation with potential fellowship hosts.

The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that serves the interdisciplinary water science community.

We foster a diverse and dynamic water science community, enabled by shared scientific infrastructure, that supports the development and communication of an integrated understanding of the interactions between water, earth, ecosystems, and society.

The purpose of The Swift International Research Fund is to benefit graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, conducting masters research in international agricultural development and/or environmental conservation.
Recipients shall demonstrate a high level of academic distinction, and shall conduct field research abroad on issues pertaining to international agricultural development and/or environmental conservation. Graduate students may be enrolled in the College of Natural Resources.

Todd Dawson focuses on the interface between plants and their environment. Specifically trying to use plant ecophysiology, ecohydrology, and stable isotope ecology to investigate how aspects of plant form and function combine to permit adaptation to environmental variation, whether naturally or anthropogenically imposed, and how plants and their unique traits influence the structure and function of the communities and ecosystems they compose.

His projects include:
1) Detecting changes in water and vegetation under rapid climatic challenges
2) The roles of plants in the critical zone
3) Coupling plant hydraulics to ecohydrological fluxes

Tomas McKay focuses on the process of design and how architecture is able to transfer information between different scales; working with the site, the client, the budget and the environment. He has been lately involved in building stronger and long-lasting relationships between Chile and California, in conservation and urban planning issues throughout private and public institutions. His main research interest is in water and climate change adaptation.

His projects includes:
1) Interdisciplinary Studio ARCH 202, Living with Water which focuses on adapting to climate change in Hong Kong
2) Pachacamac Park, a recycling water project for a public park in Lima, Peru

The UC Berkeley Superfund Research Center is an NIEHS-funded program studying the toxic effects of Superfund chemicals (including drinking water contaminants) on human health and innovative approaches to environmental remediation. Our Center has been continuously funded for over 30 years. In our current funding cycle, we have identified four complex problems associated with hazardous waste sites that have proven intractable to current methods. These problems are how to better assess: 1) cumulative impacts from multiple environmental stressors (e.g. chemical exposures, stress and obesity); 2) past exposures, especially early-life exposures and their contribution to risk; 3) the effects of chemical mixtures and their impact on remediation efforts; and, 4) the complex transformation of chemicals to reactive intermediates and their ability to act through multiple mechanistic pathways. Our six interactive projects (4 biomedical and 2 engineering) and 5 cores, are addressing these issues through original research, translation to appropriate end-users and community engagement efforts.

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who work with a Center PI on a Superfund-related project are considered Superfund Trainees. The Trainee Core, under the leadership of Professor Luoping Zhang, offers trans-disciplinary mentorship, education, and training in environmental health, environmental toxicology, environmental engineering and data science as well as professional development and leadership opportunities. Trainees have hosted a booth at CalDay for the past two years and have presented their work at the NIEHS Superfund Research Program Annual Meetings each year.

Vincent Resh focuses on aquatic biology, water pollution, modeling, and entomology.

His projects include:
1) Berkeley Water Center Berkeley/China-CDC Program for Water & Health Advisory Board
2) Approaches that can be used for biological monitoring and assessment of water quality in developing countries and by volunteer monitoring groups
3) Evolutionary biology and ecology of aquatic insects, crustaceans, and mollusks in stream and river habitats
4) Evaluation of habitat manipulations for use in environmental restoration or enhancement, control of water-borne disease vectors of humans, and the use of manipulations in examining underlying influences of ecological interactions
5) Techniques for the biological assessment of water quality.

The Wheeler Water Institute contributes robust analysis and forward-looking policy recommendations to directly inform decision-making. Anchored by our unique blend of legal, policy, and technical expertise, we bring clarity and actionable research to a famously challenging field. Established in 2012 at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law, the Institute conducts projects at the intersection of law, policy and science.

William Boos’ research group focuses on Earth’s tropical climate. They work on a range of problems involving atmosphere-ocean dynamics, land surface processes, radiative transfer, and thermodynamics. In their work, they combine theory, observational analyses, and numerical models, paying particular attention to the treatment of phase changes of water, as the interaction of precipitating clouds with planetary-scale flow is one of the central unresolved problems of planetary science.

His projects include:
1) A project centered on monsoon circulations, which deliver water to billions of people living in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and northern Australia; tracking monsoon winds is a major component, which also constitute a major component of the global circulation of Earth’s atmosphere.

Bill Dietrich’s research focuses on the processes that underlie the evolution of landscapes. His research group and collaborators are developing geomorphic transport laws for soil production, weathering and transport, and river and debris flow incision into bedrock. They are exploring the processes that control the sorting of sediment on river beds, the transport of sediment in steep, coarse bedded channels, the routing of sediment through river networks, the influence of sediment supply on river morphodynamics, the entrainment of sediment to form debris flows, and the dispersion and deposition of sediment across floodplains.

Words of the Watershed is UC Berkeley’s undergraduate journal of local environmental writing, with “local” meaning to include both Berkeley and the greater Bay Area. Students use environmental writing to indicate work that explores our collective relationship with the earth and all its inhabitants. This is a space where creative, academic, and journalistic writing and art can dwell together on common ground.

“Zachary Lamb is an assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. His research focuses on the role of urban planning and design in shaping uneven vulnerability and resilience in the face of climate change.

In 2018, Professor Lamb completed his PhD at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. His dissertation focused on the role of design in shaping urban flood infrastructure and the changing spatial politics of urban flooding through two case study cities, New Orleans, Louisiana and Dhaka, Bangladesh. His current book project, Making and Unmaking the Dry City, focuses on the historical evolution and contemporary problems of flood mitigation in these two cities.

Project Areas include: urban spatial politics, ecological design, uneven vulnerability to climate hazards, affordable housing, and alternative land and housing ownership”