Master's Project Directory

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Addressing Sedimentation of Ecuador's Rio Chone Estuary: A Watershed Perspective

This project's work showed that sheetwash erosion is the dominant geomorphic process generating sediment in the Rio Chone estuary, located on the Pacific Coast of Ecuador.

Faculty Advisors: Steve Gaines

Clients: Global Student Embassy

TURFtools: A Community-Inclusive Management Design Tool for Small-Scale Fisheries

TURFtools is a user-friendly Microsoft Excel tool that incorporates best available science, local ecological knowledge, and social objectives to facilitate community-driven management decisions. The tool was applied in the Philippines as part of the global Fish Forever initiative.

Faculty Advisors: Christopher Costello

Clients: Environmental Defense Fund

Life Cycle Assessment of a Feature Film

Our team set out to complete a life cycle assessment on producing large budget movie. Using detailed information from our partner, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), we were able to calculate the environmental impacts from making the movie, going to theaters and watching the movie at home.

Faculty Advisors: Roland Geyer

Clients: Sony Pictures Entertainment

Informing Biodiversity Conservation and Water-Quality Management in the Morro Bay Watershed

Because there is limited funding for conservation and water quality improvement projects, this project sought to identify areas of the Morro Bay estuary and watershed to prioritize for conservation, while also identifying areas where water quality improvements should be focused.

Faculty Advisors: Ben Halpern

Clients: Morro Bay National Estuary Program

Burbank Sustainable Water Master Plan

This project provided Burbank with a portfolio of tools and analytically justified strategies to enhance water sustainability:

Faculty Advisors: Robert Wilkinson

Clients: Burbank Water and Power

Motivating Water Conservation in Southern California through Allocation and Market Mechanisms

Our research examines the implications of water conservation on water allocation in Southern California. In this paper we consider two questions: How does the way water is currently allocated in Southern California encourage conservation? How could we develop a new allocation system to promote conservation, and how would the new system compare to the current system?

Faculty Advisors: Gary Libecap

Clients: Long Beach Water

Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution: Best Management Practice Impacts on Water Quality & Recommendations to Improve Monitoring Programs in Ventura County, California

This project represents an original attempt to use water quality and BMP implementation data collected under California’s CWP to provide a quantitative assessment of BMP efficacy in Ventura County.

Faculty Advisors: Andrew Plantinga

Clients: Farm Bureau of Ventura County

Investigating the Feasibility of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Santa Barbara County

The objective of this project was to determine the cost-effectiveness and implementation feasibility of GHG mitigation strategies in Santa Barbara County.

Clients: Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District

University of California, Santa Barbara Operational Effectiveness: Energy Management Initiative

This project created an energy management plan that will provide a frame-work that UCSB Utility and Energy Services can use to reduce UCSB campus energy consumption.

Faculty Advisors: Sarah Anderson

Clients: UCSB

Beaver (Castor Canadensis) Impact on Water Resources in the Jemez Watershed, New Mexico

Faculty Advisors: John Melack

Clients: WildEarth Guardians

A Water Budget Analysis to Support Sustainable Water Management for Human and Ecological Needs in the Black River Basin, New Mexico

Faculty Advisors: Arturo Keller

Clients: New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission