UC Berkeley Water Research and Opportunities Portal

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.