Projects
Year
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A Citizen Science Monitoring Protocol for the Rocky Intertidal Habitat

A Citizen Science Monitoring Protocol for the Rocky Intertidal Habitat

Faculty Advisors: John Melack

Clients: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

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Assessing the Environmental and Economic Impacts and Benefits of PV-battery Microgrid Systems in Off-Grid Communities

Assessing the Environmental and Economic Impacts and Benefits of PV-battery Microgrid Systems in Off-Grid Communities

Faculty Advisors: Roland Geyer

Clients: First Solar, Inc.

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Assessing the Effectiveness of Fire Mitigation Strategies in the Wildland-Urban Interface

Assessing the Effectiveness of Fire Mitigation Strategies in the Wildland-Urban Interface

Faculty Advisors: Sarah Anderson

Clients: City of Santa Barbara Fire Department

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Factors Influencing the Expansion of Environmental Water Markets

Factors Influencing the Expansion of Environmental Water Markets

Faculty Advisors: Gary Libecap

Clients: Mammoth Trading, Inc., Water for Food Daugherty Global Institute - University of Nebraska

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Economic Analysis of Invasive Giant Reed (Arundo Donax) Control for the Lower Santa Clara River

Economic Analysis of Invasive Giant Reed (Arundo Donax) Control for the Lower Santa Clara River

Faculty Advisors: Derek Booth

Clients: UCSB Riparian Invasion Research Lab

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Not a Drop to Spare: Sustainable Water Management Solutions for the South Coast of Santa Barbara County

Not a Drop to Spare: Sustainable Water Management Solutions for the South Coast of Santa Barbara County

Faculty Advisors: Robert Wilkinson

Clients: Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

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Microfiber Pollution and the Apparel Industry

Microfiber Pollution and the Apparel Industry

Faculty Advisors: Patricia Holden

Clients: Patagonia

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More Housing, Fewer Cars: Reducing Commute-Related Emissions on the South Coast

More Housing, Fewer Cars: Reducing Commute-Related Emissions on the South Coast

Faculty Advisors: Mark Buntaine

Clients: City of Santa Barbara Planning Commission

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Global Spatial Analysis to Identify and Characterize Wood Sourcing Regions

Global Spatial Analysis to Identify and Characterize Wood Sourcing Regions

Faculty Advisors: Lee Hannah

Clients: The Sustainability Consortium

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Biological and Social Tradeoffs of Implementing Fair Trade USA in Small-Scale Fisheries: A Case Study of Costa Rican Snapper

Biological and Social Tradeoffs of Implementing Fair Trade USA in Small-Scale Fisheries: A Case Study of Costa Rican Snapper

Faculty Advisors: Hunter Lenihan

Clients: Conservation International

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Eco-Entrepreneurship: Fruit Forward: Recapturing the Beneficial Properties of Wine Grape Skins and Seeds to Produce an Organic Preservative

Eco-Entrepreneurship: Fruit Forward: Recapturing the Beneficial Properties of Wine Grape Skins and Seeds to Produce an Organic Preservative

Faculty Advisors: Emily Cotter, Bruce Kendall, David Tilman

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EVMatch: Reducing the Barriers to Electric Vehicle Use by Matching EV Owners With Reliable Charging Options in Their Community (Eco-E)

Connecting EV owners in need of reliable charging with nearby owners of residential EV charging infrastructure on a reservation basis.

Faculty Advisors: Emily Cotter, Kyle Meng

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Eco-Entrepreneurship: InGrain: Transforming Brewery Waste Into Sustainable Packaging and Marketing Solutions

Eco-Entrepreneurship: InGrain: Transforming Brewery Waste Into Sustainable Packaging and Marketing Solutions

Faculty Advisors: Emily Cotter, Matt Potoski

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Finding a Place for Conservation: A bio-economic analysis to inform the re-zoning of the Galápagos Marine Reserve

Finding a Place for Conservation: A bio-economic analysis to inform the re-zoning of the Galápagos Marine Reserve

Faculty Advisors: Christopher Costello

Clients: National Geographic Society Pristine Seas

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Gallatin Valley Water Exchange: A market-based approach to sustainable water management in Western Montana

Gallatin Valley Water Exchange: A market-based approach to sustainable water management in Western Montana

Faculty Advisors: Thomas Dunne

Clients: The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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