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1. Colorado River Basin

2. There is an increasing demand for water from states surrounding the Colorado River that is overwhelming the water supply. Other essential uses of the Colorado River that could be compromised over time include hydropower production and recreation, irrigation, ecosystem stability, and flood control. It is difficult for scientists to determine the Colorado River's river flow and potential uptake because it is such a complex system.

3. Using simulations such as the Colorado River Simulation system and analytical tools like Tableau allows researchers to study river operations, look at the projected water supply and demand, and assess resource vulnerabilities. Tableau provides visualizations and summaries of the results of the simulations.

4. Researchers still have to evaluate the potential solutions' risks and costs (time and money), and they are working to translate their studies into specific environmental implications that people can understand to determine the best solution.

5. How are the solutions being implemented now, and have they successfully made the water usage or supply more sustainable?

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1) The location is North Slope Borough, Alaska.

2) Temperatures warming across the region causes the environment to change rapidly. The new environment is characterized by thawing land and leading to open water, instead of ice-covered lakes and ponds. This causes problems in maintaining infrastructure and other systems.

3) Engineers at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium have created a solution for an ice cellar featuring an energy-efficient, a solar and wind-energy power system, and structural supports and ventilation for allowing exchange of cellar and outside air.

4) In order to understand experts have recommended monitoring humidity and temperature in successful cellars to see how they change throughout the food storage season. Then they would replicate these conditions in new cellars.

5) How is the rapid melting causing a negative impact on the wildlife around the area as well, and what other measures can be implemented?

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Miriam Santos - Protecting Fish to Save Coral Reefs

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Miriam Santos - Protecting Fish to Save Coral Reefs

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1) Maui, island of Hawaii

2) Unsustainable fishing practices, pollution, and warming waters threaten the health of these reefs. The decline of coral cover as well as excessive macroalgae bloom raise concerns.

3) To solve this problem, the Department of Land and Natural Resources need to reduce the blooming of algae. They did this by implementing regulations that protects the fish and urchins that feed on the algae, including surgeonfishes, parrotfishes, and rudderfishes. They also banned the feeding of fish, and protected all urchins from being harvested.

4) This plan that the Department of Land and Natural Resources enforced is still continuing as they proposed that within 5-10 years the coral reef will be healthy once more. Challenges that are faced now include additional stressors to the resilience of coral reefs that still find their way into the waters including excessive nutrient loads from agriculture and landscape fertilizers, and sewage injection wells.

5) Something that I was wondering is what can be done to reduce the amount of pollution that makes its way into the ocean? Can they stop the pollution at the source or are there clean ups happening, or both?

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1) Klamath region, Northern California

2) Multiple kinds of invasive species of plants are moving upwards into the Klamath region of Northern CA, a part of California that is mostly wilderness. These invasive species' are spreading due to climate change, which causes for seed carrying wildlife to be moved along the corridors of different habitats; This allows for foreign, invasive species to take hold in a native habitat.

3) In response to this problem, the California Invasive Plant Council has tried to assess which invasive plant species to focus on, through determining how much of a threat it is to California's habitats when partnered with the impact of climate change. Then, they use natural resources to control the spread of these invasive species.

4) Currently, this organization has been using maps to mark down where the invasive species are within Klamath, then categorizing them as high risk or low risk. Plants that are high risk are eradicated by having volunteers track them down and remove the invasive plants. However, as the people that are going are volunteers that have only recently been trained to report invasive species and have not had much experience, there is a chance that the eradication of some plants may have been faulty.

5) Outside of climate change, is there any other reason for the spreading of invasive species? Could the effects of urbanization also play a part?

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1) Case study takes place in Chicago

2) As Chicago is more city than suburb and nature, the tree canopy precentage in the city is much lower than most other Midwest cities. Along with this, there has been a pretty big loss of Ash trees due to an invasive insect called the emerald ash border.

3) the solution to this is to spread awareness in the city to try and increase the amount of trees or natural life within the urban community.

4) the Chicago Regional Trees initiative is currently working on more managment and knowledge to increase the cities tree canopy along with incorperating species that are resistent to the pest.

5) What other urban communities within the states also struggle with lack of forestation, and what can students do to help?

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1. Case Study: Drought Response and Recovery Project for Water Utilities in Las Vegas, NM

2. Periodic severe droughts were worsened by long-term drought conditions.

3. To act as a solution, people have been trying to detect and repair leaks by blending lower quality groundwater with treated surface water to increase supply.

4. The solution from step 3 is still being done but one challenge is that this solution may not work depending on the severity of the drought and where it is located.

5. One question that I have is: How are the more severe areas being treated differently?

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1. The case study is in Long Beach California.

2. The problem is the vulnerability to climate hazards like drought, heatwaves, sea level rise, and air quality deterioration, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.

3. A solution could be a comprehensive assessment by the Aquarium of the Pacific (since it mentions it is a trusted source in the area), including workshops, outreach programs, and partnerships with educational institutions to raise awareness and build resilience.

4. Some problems that can be faced is continual engagement, updating exhibitions, and collaboration to support Long Beach's Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. Other challenges may be sustaining participation and securing funding.

5. How has the community responded to the Climate Resilience Workshops, and is their measurable impacts? Also did businesses also participate and adapted to those climate resilience efforts.

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1. Location: Klamath region of Northern California

2. The ecosystems in the region are very complex, and scientists expect climate change to hurt them by creating competition/migration/adaptation that can give invasive plants the upper hand against native plants.

3. CalWeedMapper, partially funded by the California Landscape Conservation Cooperative, allows experts to predict what invasive plants may flourish in the future as the climate changes. This allows them to focus on specific plants to eradicate in the region through volunteer efforts--such as the French broom plant.

4. Work is still being done as efforts in part rely on volunteers to serve as citizen scientists and survey the region for any other potential invasive plants that may appear and grow rapidly. This effort is part of a commitment to supporting the region's resiliency.

5. Is there a possibility that CalWeedMapper could become unreliable in certain situations?

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1. City of Portland, Oregon

2. The city needs to prepare for climate change by renovating the sewer management system in preparation for more rainfall.

3. The solution is to stress test many different scenarios and possible events in the future to create the most efficient sewage system to prepare for any future problems that would appear. There's no plan or construction that has started yet, because they're not completely finished testing.

4. The sewage system is not planned out yet in detail, so the Bureau of Environmental Services still needs to do more stress testing under various circumstances in order to create the best possible solution for the upcoming problem in the future.

5. How expensive will this project be? Will other cities implement this? Would it take too long to build before climate change becomes more prevalent?

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Catarina Tran: Protecting Fish to Save Coral Reefs

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Catarina Tran: Protecting Fish to Save Coral Reefs

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1.) Maui, Hawai'i

2.) With the change in water temperatures, fishing practices, and pollution the reefs have greatly suffered to the point of declining Coral cover and blooms of excessive macro-algae. Specifically in Ka'anapali Beach, one of Maui's most popular beaches, there has been a 40% coral cover decline between 1994 and 2006. This will result in excessive algae growth, creating a loss of balance in the habitat.

3.) Since fish and urchins are herbivores that consume algae, the Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources has proposed to protect these animals. With the number of herbivores increased, they would then be able to contribute to controlling the macroalgae.

4.) A protection plan was implemented in the Kahekili Herbivore Fisheries Management Area (KHFMA). This plan restricted the extraction of certain fish from the reefs including surgeonfishes, parrotfishes, and rudderfishes, making it illegal to injure, kill, possess, or remove fish in these three families from the area. This plan is still going on today and has shown great progress, but other stressors have also affected the growth of coral including land-use practices from agriculture.

5.) With land-use practices affecting coral, is there a way to keep the contaminated water away from the beaches or filter out the excessive nutrient loads in the waters used?

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1. Northern Provinces of Canada

2. People in Canada are researching wild land fires burned in Alaska, Canada, the western United States, and Mexico, and smoke rolled over large swaths of the continent. Canada specifically has experienced more than 1.8 million acres burned in Saskatchewan alone, and 13,000 people were evacuated.

3. International fire management agencies have recognized these difficulties, and are now working to address the issues of working together. The agencies see that integrating their fire management planning could enable them to prepare and respond more efficiently to combat large blazes on the continent, wherever they occur.

4. International collaboration is being more and more important and being put to use, as global warming has been causing the fire seasons to lengthen.

5. How are places like western United States and Mexico facing this problem differently?

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1. Nogales, Arizona

2. The problem is that Nogales's water supply is hard to manage due to climate and weather patterns.

3. Using simulations, hydrologists can estimate the availability of water in aquifer over time. This allows water managers to explore potential conditions as well as costs and a variety of management strategies.

4. The modeling tool is still in its early phases, so it is still being developed to be even better at meeting the specific needs of managing the water supply of Nogales.

5. How exactly does the modeling tool influence how Nogales's water is being managed and what changes has it played a role in?

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Cindy Nguyen: Responding to Oil Spills in the Arctic

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Cindy Nguyen: Responding to Oil Spills in the Arctic

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1.) Alaska, more specifically the adjacent waters.

2.) With oil and gas companies increasing extraction operations offshore and drilling in the Arctic, these operations can occasionally have accidents---resulting in massive oil spills. This is a hazard that only increases in probability as the industry expands and the number of oil-filled ships traveling along the Arctic coasts increases. These spills can have a significant impact on the Arctic environment; responders have to travel long distances to reach spills in remote areas, and a lack of adequate cleaning equipment as well as rapidly changing weather conditions interfere with efforts to respond to spills in a timely manner. Low visibility, mobilized icebergs, and extreme cold make cleanup efforts even more difficult.

3.) The U.S. Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been conduction scientific expeditions and investigations as to assess technologies and techniques for their effectiveness in mitigating this issue. For example, they have been testing the ability of unmanned aircrafts in surveying for, identifying, and monitoring the extent of simulated spills.

4.) These expeditions have frequently faced challenges when it comes to weather conditions, equipment issues, and human errors in assessment. Building resilience from these experiences, however, crews have continuously reassessed their failures to continue pushing forward. Companies and individuals involved with this industry in the Arctic likely already make efforts to prevent oil spills, but these measures are crucial as accidents will still happen.

5.) What other, notable innovations have come out of these expeditions? Can bioremediation/microorganisms be effective in addressing this issue?

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1. Hilo, Hawaii

2. They are concerned that the current policy was inadequate to protect the natural coastal environment and ensure human safety from processes such as coastal erosion, slumping (landslides), subsidence (sinking of land), and sea level rise.

3. The research team set out to quantify historic and contemporary rates of change along different types of shorelines, and then to model observed changes into the future through sea level rise impacts.

4. A key element that contributed to the quick uptake of the research was team agreement about the end products: team members met multiple times to discuss the scope and project outcomes to be sure deliverables could be directly and quickly utilized by planners in crafting a new setback policy. They still face legal issues with back push from the government.

5. Why does the government not want to change the policies that prevent local work on the shorelines?

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1 - My case study is located in Ventura, California

2 - The problem that was shown in this case study was that the recently reconstructed bike path along the beach at Surfers' Point was eroding again. Coastal erosion eventually swallowed large portions of the bike path, as well as the parking lot at the adjacent fairground

3 - The solution was to relocate the bike path and beach parking lot out of harm's way. To stabilize the area, they constructed a "cobble mattress" on the back beach.

4 - Even though this plan worked out a huge challenge that they faced was that rising sea levels would continue to threaten the beach.

5 - Does this problem occur on any other beaches if there is what do they do to solve this?

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Location: Alaska

Many coastal communities in Alaska have no formal knowledge and data about storms and floods, therefore being at risk of storms and floods.

The solution was for fellows to work together to collect information from past floods and storms. Then they used the data to see the risk of flooding the current infrastructure faces and also assessed damages that would have been done.

The weather forecasters are using the fellow's maps to communicate storms in a more simple way.

One question that I have is was the research truly successful in minimizing flood and storm damages in Alaska?

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1. This case study takes place in Blue Lake Rancheria, a tribal government and community, located in the North West coast of California.

2. The tribe is located in a geographically isolated area, with harsh weather common. Diesel is also expensive in the North, and shipments can get delayed often. The construction of energy-efficient infrastructure in the area serves to protect the community from disaster that could isolate them for long periods of time.

3. The Tribe is constructing low-carbon projects that also become the community's lifeline in case of disaster by providing energy, water, food, communication, and transportation. The planning for this began in 2008, to which they have reduced their energy consumption by 40 percent in 2014.

4. As of now, the Blue Lake Rancheria is making both a community-scale microgrid (network of electricity) and a facility-scale microgrid inside their fuel and convenience store, a crucial means to provide a lifeline.

5. Are there larger communities implementing similar plans of reducing energy consumption?

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1) The location of this caste study is in Long Beach

2) Their issue is climate change in not only the land, but also in the ocean. The problem found was droughts, subsequent water shortages, extreme heat, sea level rise and coastal flooding, and deteriorating air quality are the problems assessed.

3) The solution that officials imposed were that he signed the "Compact of Mayors" to limit these changes within the environment. They also wrote user-friendly guides to distribute out to the public and conducted workshops to help educate. There was also a partnership between the Aquarium and Masters of Business Administration at CSULB to develop outreach programs.

4) Currently, they're still developing outreach programs and also reaching out to citizens. I believe the city is focusing on educating and raising awareness for the conditions of their county.

5) What is the state of Long Beach now and how much have they improved in general from their climate issue?

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1) Pacific Ocean

2) There is bleaching happening to the coral in the Pacific Ocean

3) The coral expels the algae inside them which makes them have color when they're stressed, what's stressing them is the amount of warmth in the ocean due to climate change and carbon dioxide inside the seawater.

4) We continue to have warmer climates which can only lead to more coral dying in the Pacific Ocean

Question: If we managed to fix this problem, would the coral come back to color or would it stay dead in the ocean while new ones grew?

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1. Portland, Oregon

2. The future climate of the city will be hotter, which as a result, will have a higher risk of local and riverine flooding and landslides in the future.

3. The Bureau of Environmental Services wants to examine the standards for stormwater and its waste management, analyzing it to find the key part that is the most impactful of the data that they can respond to.

4. They experienced problems in trying to find a method that could determine the sub-daily rainfall intensity. Lots of the factors that determine stormwater are all under deep uncertainty, so you can never really be so sure about what could happen. However, they were able to gather the information that the intensity of the rainfall can heavily influence the risk of flooding.

5. How would they apply this knowledge that they gathered into a 3D model of a solution that solves or at least alleviates the problem in real time? Perhaps something like a more complex addition to the sewer system that can handle heavy intensity in rainfall.

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1. The case study is in New Hampshire.

2. During 2016, severe droughts struck areas of the Northeast. Some water-supply professionals suspect that it may be connected to climate change. A increase in temperatures was also recorded from 1958-2010.

3. Keene New Hampshire has been a leader in climate change planning and mitigation. Their water utility is planning to implement watershed management plans to analyze water efficiency during droughts.

4. Keene's water utility is working on developing solutions to reduce the amount of water lost in sewers.

5. How could implementing solutions to help reduce water conservation and contamination contribute to the mitigation of climate change?

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1) The location is St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

2) Land-based sources of sediment and pollution are threatening the health of coral reefs in St. Croix.

3) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency utilized NOAA C-CAP land cover data and coral survey data to develop landscape development intensity. This allow us to understand the factors that have been affecting it and guiding us to make the correct decision.

4)Ongoing challenges could be potential conflicts between conservation efforts and economic interests as if we make it change, something will be sacrificed.

Question: How could this help and be applied to other parts of the world_

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1. The case study is about Kake, Alaska

2. The community of Kake is concerned about how climate change and pollution might impact the streams and ocean waters they depend on for food, leading to food security and food sovereignty issues.

3. The Kake Climate Partnership was formed to address these concerns, with local leadership collaborating with the University of Alaska Fairbanks to monitor the impacts of climate change and pollution on traditional foods. This includes ocean and freshwater monitoring projects, creating jobs, and adding capacities to the community’s workforce.

4. Challenges include ongoing monitoring and analysis of data, ensuring the sustainability of the projects, and adapting to changing conditions and future impacts of climate change and pollution.

5. How has the Kake community been involved in shaping the research projects and decisions of the Kake Climate Partnership?

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1. Kivalina, Alaska

2. Coastal erosion is shrinking the barrier island of Kivalina and endangering the Alaskan Native village on the island.

3. The U.S. Army Corps built a rock revetment in 2010 to buy the people time to decide on relocation. The problem cannot be solved.

4. A biochar sanitation system is being built on the island to turn waste into sustainable energy, as well as the community and non-profit organizations working to fund expensive relocation costs.

5. Is it possible for future environmental engineering developments to create a solution to the issue of coastal erosion?

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1) City of Clinton, Oklahoma

2) There were historically low water levels in the city, the worst drought ever recorded there.

3) Some solutions they used were: implemented water use restrictions, increased the amount of water purchased from existing interconnection.

4) Something that is still being done is that people are still being charged more for water, in order to promote water conservation.

5) One question I have about the case study is why such a severe drought occurred in the first place?

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2) There is a development setback that would expose costal communities to hazard

3) Community members petitioned and researched to protect human safety and find a compromise of cutting-edge research

4) Team members are still collaborating, doing field research, and methodical work. The Hawai'I General Board is being more proactive wiht all measures

5) What was more of the local reactions? Not just from University staff, but residents?