| Spring 2012 Colloquium |
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The Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Colloquium (LD ARCH 253, CCN: 48629) brings together distinguished speakers to present research, theories, and practices relevant to the landscape architecture and environmental planning. Speakers include academics, professionals, practitioners, and graduate students in landscape architecture, environmental planning, urban planning and design, environmental studies and other related fields. This semester, the colloquium will focus on planning for water sustainability in California and abroad. Speakers will address a range of topics, from site-scale stormwater interventions to state-level policies for adapting to climate change. The colloquium will emphasize both social and natural dimensions to water planning, including aspects of hydrology, ecology, site design, green infrastructure, community building, water economics, risk management and sociopolitical change. The colloquium will take place Wednesdays from 1–2 p.m. in 315A Wurster Hall (unless otherwise noted). Speakers will talk for 30-40 minutes, followed by discussion with the audience. Students are encouraged to ask questions following the presentations. The colloquium is open to registered students and the general public. For course credit, registered students must attend at least 11 of the 14 scheduled lectures. These lectures start precisely at 1:10, and students should arrive early as a courtesy to our guests and in order to sign in for credit. In addition, students must complete a brief course reaction statement/critical analysis (approx 500 words) by May 4, 2012. Note: Speakers and lecture schedules are subject to change.
January 18, 2012 Allison Lassiter Introduction: What is Water Planning? Rachael Marizon Quito: Becoming a South American Model for Green Infrastructure, Stormwater Management, and Climate Change Adaptation Quito, the capital of Ecuador, lies high in the Andes Mountains (elevation 2,850 meters) at the foot of the Pichincha volcano. As a result of its unique geographic location, urban development has emerged along volcano slopes and ravines (much of it illegal), and many Quito residents are subject to routine seismic and volcanic risks, landslides, and floods. Quito’s urban development has led to disappearing wetlands within its valley, losses of the unique “paramo” grassland ecosystem on its volcano slopes, and deforestation. Additionally, its stormwater runoff and other water resources suffer from contamination, untreated liquid and solid residues, and poor management. Climate change is expected to exacerbate many of these problems and remarkably Quito is one of the first and only Latin American cities to have a local Climate Change Strategy program. Planned adaptations and mitigation strategies include water and watershed conservation, research on glaciers and the paramo ecosystem, wastewater control and treatment improvements, a mountainside and ravine management program, and an urban runoff management program. As part of the city’s planning efforts, La Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Agua Potabley Saneamiento (EMAAP), a government water and sanitation agency, hosted a conference in November 2011 (“Infraestructura verde en ciudades”) to discuss planning and engineering proposals for green infrastructure development in Quito and Latin America. Conference presentations were given by UC Berkeley LAEP faculty Louise Mozingo, G. Mathias Kondolf, and Joe McBride, as well as several LAEP alumni. In this colloquium, EMAAP conference student participants will provide an overview of Quito’s challenges, a summary of the EMAAP conference, and a description of current student research projects in Quito. Rachael Marzion is a masters student in the concurrent program with Environmental Planning and International and Area Studies. Ricardo Cruz e Sousa Integrated Stormwater Management for Quito, Ecuador - The Ortega Watershed Case-Study The south side of Quito has been continuously developing occupying stream banks up to areas classified as natural preserve on the slopes of the Atacazo Mountain, southwest of the city. These spontaneous developments impact negatively the natural water cycle of the watersheds; pollute water resources, cause soil erosion, landslides, and floods that affect all the way to the city center. The city’s water company has been investing strongly in conventional systems of urban drainage with special care for the streams in this southern side that, fortunately, haven’t been buried yet. An alternative solution to Quito’s drainage systems can be Integrated Stormwater Management (ISM). The ISM objective is to design a sustainable structural and nonstructural runoff management by incorporating storage-oriented systems and policies to decrease surface runoff, improve water quality, and mitigate natural disasters. Through planning the retrofit of several areas adjacent to the Ortega Creek, this study will demonstrate the potential of ISM as an alternative to urban runoff that should be replicated in other areas of the city. Ricardo da Cruz e Sousa practiced as a Landscape Architect for five years in Portugal before coming to UC Berkeley. He is in is second year of the Masters of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning. His main interests are environmental issues in urban areas in developing countries. In particular, he is interested in integrating urban river restoration, stormwater management, and flood control with land use planning to improve conditions for impoverished populations. Matt Kondolf Dams and the Mekong The Mekong River flows from the Tibetan Plateau, through bedrock canyons in southwest China, and thence through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and ultimately the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. With a wide seasonal flow variation and high sediment load, the Mekong is extraordinarily productive, with its seasonally flooded banks and floodplains providing habitat for reproduction of many fish species, and its fertile soils support agriculture as flood waters recede. Unique among the world’s great rivers, its ecosystem supports a human population of 60 million. Essentially unregulated until the 1990s, the Mekong River system is now being rapidly changed by land-use change and over 135 dams that are under construction or planned. Of these, the Mekong River Commission counts about 40 as certain (termed the ‘definite future’ scenario). The other dams face more hurdles, and their designs are still more open to being influenced to reduce impacts. These dams will regulate the river’s flow, but they will create even larger changes to the river’s sediment flux. Thus the question arises, how much will Mekong River and tributary dams reduce the sediment load from its pre-dam level of 160 million tonnes/year? What are the likely implications: for the productivity of agriculture and the fishery within the lower Mekong River/Delta, to the offshore fishery, and to the sustainability of the Delta landform itself? Our preliminary results indicate that full build-out would cause significant sediment reduction and impacts to the system, while the ‘definitive future’ dams will have a measurable effect but not be as serious in their consequences. G. Mathias (Matt) Kondolf is a fluvial geomorphologist/environmental planner, specializing in environmental river management and restoration. At the University of California, Berkeley, he teaches courses in hydrology, river restoration, environmental science, and Mediterranean-climate landscapes, and is Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. John Andrew Adapt, Flee, or Perish; Responses to Climate Change for California's Water Sector The talk will present: 1) the challenges posed by climate change for California's water supply, including a reduction in snowpack, shifts in seasonal timing of runoff, and rising seas; and 2) adaptation strategies for California's water management systems. John Andrew is Assistant Deputy Director of the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), where he oversees all of DWR's climate change activities. He was the lead author of DWR's climate change water adaptation white paper, Managing an Uncertain Future; Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for California's Water (October 2008), and served as the water sector lead for the California Climate Adaptation Strategy (December 2009). He holds degrees in Civil Engineering and Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley. Juliet Christian-Smith Drought Impacts: Learning from the Past, Preparing for the Future Dr. Juliet Christian-Smith is a Senior Research Associate with the Pacific Institute's Water Program. Her interests include agricultural water uses, comparative analyses of water governance structures, water reuse, and climate change. Dr. Christian-Smith is a recipient of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Award for Outstanding Achievement and serves on the Executive Board of the Agricultural Water Management Council. She is also a Frontiers of Science Fellow for the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Christian-Smith holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Biology from Smith College. Cleo Woelfle-Erskine Greywater Reuse, Rainwater Harvesting, and a New Culture of Water: Low-Tech Collaborations Among Common Waters This talk charts two streams in urban water policy: a practical consideration of how to design, disseminate, and regulate decentralized greywater and rainwater harvesting systems, and a social-political consideration of what kinds of water infrastructures and social relationships to water promote equitable and environmentally sustainable societies. Through an exploration of the Greywater Guerrillas / Greywater Action's 13 years of grassroots education and policy work, Woelfle-Erskine will discuss current opportunities and constraints to create integrated urban waterscapes as an alternative ever-expanding water works. Cleo Woelfle-Erskine, co-founder of the Greywater Guerrillas, aims to transform cultures of water use grounded in waste, ignorance, and apathy into resilient cultures of water rooted in renewed community connections to local water sources and cycles. Woelfle-Erskine's current work includes research into the water savings, ecological implications, and social impact of home greywater and rainwater systems, theoretical writing on water commons, and local collaborations developing mutual aid-based models to disseminate ecological sanitation technologies widely. His books include Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground and Creating Rain Gardens (out March 2012 from Timber Press). John Radke Howard Foster TBA Ellen Hanak Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation In much of the world, water has become a source of increasing conflict. Current policies are failing to meet the economy’s demands for water supply reliability, water quality, and flood protection; meanwhile, freshwater aquatic ecosystems are in sharp decline despite several decades of well-intentioned, but insufficient and poorly coordinated policies designed to protect them. Climate warming is expected to increase these challenges in the coming decades. California – a growing economy with a highly variable climate and a large agricultural sector - is at the forefront of many of these conflicts. Drawing on a new book by an interdisciplinary team of experts, co-author Ellen Hanak will explore new approaches to managing water in an era of increasing scarcity and competing demands. How can available management tools, such as markets for water supply and quality and easements for flooding, improve performance and reduce costs? And what kinds of changes in water management institutions and regulations are needed to better reconcile diverse management objectives? Ellen Hanak is currently a Senior Policy Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). She specializes in natural resource management, including water policy, flood control, land use policy, ecosystem management, climate change policy, and public investment strategies. Prior to joining PPIC in 2001, she was a Research Economist at CIRAD, the French center for agricultural development research. She has also served as a Staff Economist for the Council of Economic Advisors and a Consultant at World Bank. Dr. Hanak earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland and a M.A. in economics from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. John Scarpulla Building a Water-Resilient City Throughout the world, wastewater treatment and stormwater management systems are being re-thought. No longer considered a waste product, stormwater and other “waste” waters are now being managed, and sometimes reclaimed, in innovative ways that increases their resource value. There are clear connections between sewer system protection, stormwater management, and potable water offsets. Onsite wastewater treatment reduces demand on San Francisco’s water and wastewater systems through non-potable reuse and discharge avoidance, mitigates peak wastewater conditions through dispersed storage capacity, and defers costs and expenses of expanding infrastruture to meet growing demand. Due to increasing populations, potential percipitation changes because of climate change, more stringent environmental regulations, and the high cost of updating infrastructure, there is consensus among water professionals that municipal agencies can no longer afford to consider wastewater simply as a public health hazard that must be disposed of safely and quickly. Rather, wastewater and stormwater should be viewed as valuable resources that can be effectively used to reduce the environmental impacts and costs associated with a region’s water and wastewater system. This presentation examines the work of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s Urban Watershed Management Program (UWMP). The UWMP aims to encourage and require projects to incorporate onsite stormwater and wastewater management and other water sensitive strategies to adapt San Francisco to climate change and a growing population. John Scarpulla is a member of the Urban Watershed Management Program at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, where he specializes in non-potable reuse systems, ecological sanitation, green plumbing techniques, and green infrastructure maintenance. Before coming to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, he worked at the Sierra Club teaching integrated water resource management strategies to planners, elected officials, and developers in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. He also has worked in the commercial construction sector as a project manager for mechanical and plumbing contractors. John received his master’s degree in Environmental Planning from San Jose State University. Rachel Kraai Qanat / Khettara / Chain Well : Tracing Traditional Groundwater Harvesting Systems in the Mediterranean Qanats are an ancient groundwater harvesting technology which enabled the growth of human settlements throughout North Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Mediterranean. In contrast to today’s groundwater mining systems, qanat based-systems are considered to be a more sustainable technology. As such, their importance is being reassessed; as they are rendered obselete by declining groundwater levels and decay, community groups and academics are developing political and engineering strategies to ensure their survival, and studying them in an attempt to learn more about how these traditional forms can inform future water management strategies. In the spring of 2010, Rachel Kraai traveled through Spain and Morocco visiting qanats in various stages of use. Her travels led her through water supply tunnels, into the offices of water managers, and into tents of nomadic groups in the Sahara desert. Her presentation to the colloquium will provide an overview of the systems she visited, their construction, and current activism to revive them. qanat: a passive groundwater harvesting system created by a gently sloping tunnel dug horizontally into an alluvial fan until the groundwater table is pierced; also known as khatarras (Morocco), kariz, (Afghanistan), fogharra (Algeria), galerías and “vias de agua” (Spain), qanat-based infrastructure can be found in over 35 countries around the world. Rachel Kraai is a Regulatory Specialist for the Urban Watershed Management Program at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. She develops and implements rainwater harvesting policy and programs, graywater projects, and programs which incorporate low impact design-based stormwater management techniques into San Francisco's streetscapes. Prior to her work at the SFPUC, Rachel worked in sustainable transportation policy and planning, with a focus on bicycle and pedestrian projects. Rachel received her Master’s Degree in Environmental Planning and Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. Matt Heberger Managing Groundwater as if the Environment Mattered: Policy and Management Reforms in the Western United States In many areas of the United States, excessive pumping and groundwater overdraft are causing rivers and wetlands to go dry. In western states, where most surface water has long been fully appropriated, growing populations have turned increasingly to groundwater, leading to decreases in streamflows, conflicts with surface water rights, and harm to fish and wildlife. States have begun the process of reforming outdated laws and policies, some more ambitiously than others, and with mixed results. In this talk, we will look at the experience of Oregon, New Mexico, and Texas, and explore steps that states have taken to limit groundwater pumping while avoiding undue harm to regional economies. We will also examine the role of discuss the role of the endangered species protections, environmental organizations and water trusts in precipitating these changes. Further, we will explore how states used tools such as "basin closures," groundwater rights, "mitigation credits", and water markets to promote sustainable water use. We will conclude by looking at what else states should be doing to manage groundwater and surface water conjunctively, as a single resource, to promote a healthy environment and healthy economies. Matthew Heberger is a researcher at the non-profit Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. He's spent the last 15 years working on water issues as a researcher, engineer, and policy analyst, and as a hygiene and sanitation educator in West Africa. His currently research covers water supply and water quality, water and energy, and impacts of climate change on water resources. Matthew has degrees from Cornell and Tufts Universities and is a licensed professional engineer. Andrew Fahlund The Bathtub and the Hair Dryer: Exploring the Water-Energy Nexus Water is the source of all life on earth and critical for everything from food production to semi-conductor manufacture. Energy is the foundation of our economy and integral to almost every aspect of modern society. It takes freshwater to produce energy, and it takes energy to manage freshwater, but just like the bathtub and the hair dryer, these two media are seldom addressed together. Mr. Fahlund will discuss the development of a new research agenda as well as policy recommendations that can lead to more coordinated management of these two critical commodities. Elizabeth Dougherty Water Conservation and Reuse Strategies for Sustainable Water Management Where does our water come from? How much water do you use daily and how? Where does your water go after use? How do we match end use with the most appropriate water source?" As California water supplies are threatened by population rise, climate change, riparian ecological collapse, and inappropriate use of water, the answers to these questions creates a kind of road map for sustainable water management. Dr. Dougherty will focus on how and why rainwater, graywater, stormwater infiltration and blackwater are vital strategies for sustainable water management in California. Elizabeth Dougherty is determined to make innovative approaches to water sustainability all the rage in California. Early in 2009 Elizabeth founded Wholly H2o, a CA state-wide nonprofit that provides education and research on conservation, rainwater, graywater, stormwater and blackwater as primary water sources. Wholly H2O is located in San Francisco, CA. Elizabeth serves on the CUWCC's Education Committee and the Research & Evaluation Committee; Green CA; the Education and Outreach Committee for the CA State Water Plan 2013; the CII High-tech Water Conservation Working Group; Green CA; and the Silicon Valley Water Conservation Award Committee. In 2008, Elizabeth established a very active permaculture association in Peru. Elizabeth received her PhD in Ethnography from University of Pennsylvania in 2003 and has developed expertise in Fair Trade, Sustainable Agriculture and Energy Efficiency, working in a wide variety of countries in Africa and Latin America. She is also an artist with a studio at American Steel Studios in West Oakland and is currently building LED-lit water fountains from recycled materials. Zan Rubin Creative methods of historical analysis to inform river management: Case studies from the Colorado River and French Prealps Zan will present case studies from the Colorado River and southern French Prealps investigating the historic range of variability of river forms and processes. These creative investigations seek to inform the simple yet elusive questions, “What should this river look like? How does it function?” Zan Rubin is a PhD student in Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley. He received his Bachelor's Degree in both Geology and Religious Studies from Bowdoin College, and his Master’s in Geoscience from Colorado State University. Currently, his research is on evaluating the goals and implementation of the Lower Colorado River Multi Species Conservation Plan. Tom Cuda The Ethics of Artistic Water Usage In one of the driest cities on the planet, in a world where a billion people are without safe drinking water, sit the fountains of Bellagio — 22 million gallons, 1,214 jets, shooters and fans, and at any given moment up to 17,000 gallons of water in the air. What is, and what should be, the ethical framework that drives our water usage decisions? This presentation will focus on the foundations of our reasoning about water usage in the context of our ethical commitments to our fellow human beings and the environment. Tom Cuda received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Logic and Philosophy from the University of Southern California in 1990. He taught at MIT and Virginia Tech before joining Hughes Research Labs. Currently he is Chief Scientist for WET. His publications and patents include work in Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Expert Systems, and Philosophy of Mind. |
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