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.

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.

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.

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 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 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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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