The project analyzed the potential ecological impacts of environmental education and other activities on the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve in Lompoc, California as a case study, and to develop a long term monitoring program that can be used by preserve management agencies.
This project team designed a transferable decision support tool to help Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) in California’s Central Valley to identify the most suitable sites for MAR, giving them the information they need to plan for a more reliable and resilient water supply that can provide the most benefit for local communities and ecosystems.
This project worked with Apeel Sciences, a small biotechnology startup interested in sourcing food waste as an input to their product, to evaluate the environmental impacts of sourcing waste using two different Life Cycle Assessment methodologies, economic allocation and substitution.
This project assessed the effectiveness of regenerative organic practices to store soil carbon, modeled greenhouse gas emissions and evaluated the effect of different regenerative organic practices on total GHG emissions, and developed recommendations for Patagonia on which practices have the largest impact on carbon sequestration in the soil.
This project examined if the Environmental Defense Fund's Framework for Integrated Stock and Habitat Evaluation (FISHEF) would continue to provide sound guidance to data-limited fishery managers given the influences of global climate change on fish.
This project assessed the relationships between air pollution particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) and diabetes prevalence throughout the state of California using a cross sectional and panel data approach for the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute.
Through evaluating the benefit of adding rain capturing technology to Austin, TX, this project aimed to create a versatile evaluation framework for water management projects in other municipalities.
This project analyzed the willingness of small-scale fisheries to participate in a vessel tracking program that is incentive-compatible to their preferences. The team conducted a dual response choice experiment to evaluate fisheries' preference data from surveys conducted in Indonesia and Mexico, then utilized a contingent valuation to gauge both fishers’ willingness to pay for a tracking program and the effects of fishers’ characteristics on their willingness to pay.
In conjunction with the Joint Institute for Wood Products Innovation (through the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection), the project team aims to assess how California’s forests may support statewide carbon neutrality. The project focuses on determining the costs and carbon consequences of a host of forest management treatments across all forests in California, and how these treatments can contribute to the State’s climate goals.
Trade-offs associated with marine reserves are believed to have played a key role in the network’s delayed implementation; potential long-term gains in sustainable fishing and the conservation of biodiversity likely generate short-term losses in fishery revenue due to fishery closures. The trade-offs between conservation and livelihood led our team to ask: What are the consequences of delaying the implementation of a reserve network, and how much area should be protected to enhance both fish biomass and catch?
The Nature Conservancy enlisted this group project team to help determine whether investments in natural infrastructure could lower insurance costs to hoteliers and coastal development sites.
This project team worked with The Nature Conservancy, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and other island conservation organizations to better understand how climate change will impact island oaks and their recovery.
In California, there is often an excess supply of solar energy in the middle of the day, which can lead to grid curtailment - when clean, renewable energy is not generated to its full capacity or sold to other regions at negative pricing. As more electric vehicles enter the market in California and are poised to charge at the similar peak demand times, utilities are looking for strategies to shift demand of electric vehicle charging to use that excess supply of solar energy. The project's goal was to analyze the potential of electric vehicles as a flexible demand response tool and how to turn a challenge into an opportunity.
By modeling various product changes out to the year 2035 with company growth, this team identified the material and dye applications with the largest GHG savings for apparel company Patagonia. From this, they sought to develop realistic product change recommendations to decrease the overall environmental impact of Patagonia’s products.
This project aimed to identify synergies and tradeoffs between agricultural practices, ecosystem health, and human wellbeing in Rwanda. Their approach was to examine Vital Sign’s integrated data across a variety of indicators. This analysis was then used to inform agricultural development decisions.
