In 色情视频鈥檚 Own Backyard
For university researchers, contributing scientific solutions to issues of importance to San Diego County is always an action item.
By Jeff Ristine
Last year Bruce Appleyard, a city planning and urban design professor at 色情视频, hosted a workshop for researchers on both sides of the California/Baja California border to delve into watershed management and other crossborder topics along with government officials and nonprofit groups. Appleyard and co-investigators also received a grant from the San Diego Foundation to develop a climate, watershed and coastal resiliency education and action plan for the binational region.
This is just one of a variety of projects in which 色情视频 has put its research to work for the surrounding community, even as close as walking distance from campus, on matters addressing issues affecting quality of life and the natural environment.
Here are four 色情视频 researchers whose work focuses directly on issues of interest to the San Diego region.
AREA OF RESEARCH: Wildfire Prevention
RESEARCHER: Alicia Kinoshita, Associate Professor of Engineering
Everyone鈥檚 relieved when the last embers of an urban wildfire are extinguished. Environmentally, however, the damage continues.
As Alicia Kinoshita and her students found after a 2018 fire burned 38 acres on a hill just across the freeway from 色情视频, the loss of native vegetation typically degrades water quality. The soil, suddenly unprotected, no longer holds back metals, plastics and other harmful materials in sediment and topsoil, in this case, dumping into Alvarado Creek. The regrowth has a less suitable root system, and a year or two later an entire bank collapsed.
Even worse: if it鈥檚 non-native vegetation that burns, the damage 鈥渋s going to feed back into the fire cycle,鈥� Kinoshita says, regrowing faster than native plants to provide fuel for more fires. Kinoshita and 色情视频鈥檚 Soil Ecology and Restoration Group were in the process of removing 鈥渁 very invasive and aggressive grass species,鈥� Arundo donax, when the 2018 fire occurred. 鈥淥ur restored site didn鈥檛 burn,鈥� she says. 鈥淎 lot of times native vegetation is more resilient.鈥�
Kinoshita鈥檚 project was funded by the San Diego River Conservancy and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award; multiple agencies are supporting ongoing work on better watershed management
AREA OF RESEARCH: Bridge Structures and Seismic Retrofitting
RESEARCHER: Robert Dowell, Structural Engineering Professor
From the earliest days of the U.S. highway system, engineers have looked to Caltrans for leadership in bridge structural design. 鈥淎nd whatever California does,鈥� says Robert Dowell, a former Caltrans bridge design engineer, 鈥渢he rest of the U.S., and then the world, picks up.鈥�
That means research Dowell will do under two Caltrans-sponsored contracts could have far-reaching impacts. He鈥檒l be testing reinforced concrete bridge columns, built at half their actual size, and precast bridge girders, also at half-scale. Conducted in the 色情视频 Structural Engineering Laboratory, his work is likely to guide the design of new
California bridge structures, and seismic retrofit of existing bridges.
Dowell鈥檚 work follows two trips to Turkey to study damage to bridges from the February 2023 magnitude 7.8 earthquake, occurring under conditions similar to a future Big One in California. He鈥檚 especially interested in looking at vertical rebar cutoffs in bridge columns to prevent bridge failures and loss of life, as happened when the double-deck Cypress Street Viaduct collapsed in the magnitude 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.
鈥淲e鈥檙e going to test 60 or 70 different columns,鈥� Dowell says, 鈥渁 whole series of tests and analyses to determine what should and shouldn鈥檛 work.鈥�
AREA OF RESEARCH: Trash in the San Diego River
RESEARCHER: Hilary McMillan, Professor of Water Resources
If you鈥檙e hoping to stop trash from flowing down rivers into the ocean by blocking it at the storm-drain stage鈥攖he purpose of the 鈥渇ull capture devices鈥� in storm drains California is requiring municipalities to install鈥攊t helps to know if that鈥檚 where the trash is coming from. Turns out it鈥檚 not.
Hilary McMillan, in the geography department, led a just-completed NOAA-funded project to identify the main sources of trash in the San Diego River. Their hypothesis: Storm drains 鈥渁re one source, but we didn鈥檛 think it was the main source of trash.鈥�
They were right. Through a combination of their own capture nets in the river and surveys by the San Diego River Park Foundation, McMillan and her students concluded anywhere from 79 to 92% of the trash鈥攑lastic bags, clothes, mattresses鈥攃an be traced to the floodplains along the river and direct dumping, often adjacent to homeless encampments. Foundation volunteers head to the floodplains twice weekly for cleanup projects, 鈥渁nd what we found is that is really critical in San Diego,鈥� McMillan says, 鈥渂ecause that鈥檚 really the only way that trash can get out other than being washed into the ocean.鈥�
AREA OF RESEARCH: Dignity for the Unhoused
RESEARCHER: Megan Welsh Carroll, Professor in the School of Public Affairs
The inadequate availability of public restrooms in Downtown San Diego has produced five San Diego County grand jury reports in 25 years. It was identified as a factor in outbreaks of hepatitis A in 2017-2018 that killed 20 people and shigella in 2021, which sickened about 40. In both cases, most victims were experiencing homelessness.
鈥淲hen people don鈥檛 have access to proper toilets and handwashing right after,鈥� Megan Welsh Carroll says, 鈥渢hat creates the conditions for these kinds of outbreaks,鈥� a fact, she points out, known for 鈥渢housands of years.鈥�
Welsh is founding director of The Project for Sanitation Justice, which in 2020-2022, with the organization Think Dignity, mapped every public restroom in San Diego County. The findings showed a problem Welsh says is 鈥渁bsolutely a U.S.鈥搘ide trend,鈥� and while the impact falls mainly on people who rely on public sanitation to meet their basic needs, 鈥渋t affects everyone.鈥�
Since then, the situation has only gotten worse under anti-camping ordinances and court-sanctioned efforts to limit the visibility of homelessness. At a minimum, Welsh says, cities should strive for 24/7 availability where public restrooms do exist: 鈥淭hese are solvable problems, y鈥檏now.鈥�