Breakneck growth followed by a real estate crash just over the mountains from Orange County is giving UC Irvine doctoral students a chance to grapple with issues like traffic, open space and energy consumption.
Those elements are closely linked in the Inland Empire, as Riverside and San Bernardino counties are called. Almost half the 860,000 homes there are now worth less than the amount owed on their mortgages, say economists. Officials fear that newly arrived middle-class residents may already be fleeing for greener pastures with shorter commutes and better jobs. Members of the UCI Environment Institute’s Sustainability Science Team say there’s reason for concern.
“All you see out there is ‘For rent,’ ‘For rent’ – and, yes, ‘In foreclosure’ too,” says Alexis Hickman, a planning, policy & design grad student in the interdisciplinary group, which each year is expected to tackle a real-world project related to sustainability.
She and her colleagues are working with mayors, city council members and other leaders in western Riverside County to incorporate more environmentally sound practices in future planning, which can be a challenge even when times are good. “Everybody’s going through economic difficulties, but they’re on the extreme end,” says Sarah Lyon, who’s pursuing a doctorate in accounting. “So how do you make the environmentally sustainable option the economically feasible option as well?”
Danielle Tinkoff, a comparative literature grad student whose expertise in crafting written materials is integral to the team’s success, says: “Right now we’re trying to figure out how to balance the two. How do you infuse economic growth with awareness of available natural resources, such as fresh water?”
Rick Bishop, executive director of the Western Riverside Council of Governments – which comprises 17 cities, county government and two water districts – says: “The bottom line in sustainability is: How are we going to accommodate another million people? The environment is going to play very strongly into it. Open space and clean air – in my mind – are most important because, frankly, we don’t have an ocean, like coastal counties do.”
Sustainability Science Team members have attended WRCOG committee meetings looking at transportation, energy, water and other needs and are helping gather data on everything from types of power consumption to rates of recycling. For instance, there are several electric utilities, private and public. Collecting comparable data on power usage is critical if energy-efficiency targets are to be set and met.
They next will establish usage baselines and other goals aimed at conserving and even marketing natural resources as growth occurs and load them into an interactive computer program that will allow officials to track how they’re doing. In the fall, the students hope to hold a daylong workshop reviewing all the work.
Critical to their success is the interdisciplinary expertise of team members – such as a planner’s take on improving education or an engineer’s advice on how to realistically integrate solar power into the energy supply.
Hickman elaborates: “Usually, it’s planning students sitting around telling each other, ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea,’ whereas a materials engineer is going to say, ‘You can’t have that substantial a reliance on solar panels, because solar power isn’t 100 percent reliable.’”
Sasha Richey, an engineer specializing in water resources, adds, “As a hydrologist, I’m used to the physical perspective, but being part of this team helps me step out of my intellectual comfort zone and value concepts such as rhetoric and economic feasibility.”
Environment Institute director Michael Prather says, “The range of schools involved is representative of the know-how needed to address the complex challenges of building a sustainable lifestyle whose demands do not rapidly deplete the world’s natural resources.”
Created in 2008, the institute studies the relationship between society and the environment. It also promotes academic collaboration among UCI schools and departments through faculty recruitment and interdisciplinary research grants, and it sponsors public events for sharing findings and encouraging action.
Doctoral students interested in joining the institute’s 2011 Sustainability Science Team should check the website for new application information in the next few weeks. The deadline is mid-June.
— Janet Wilson, University Communications
