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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.