This just-published peer-reviewed article argues that a US Army Corps flood risk management project should focus on tributaries of the Pearl River, where flooding impacts are most extensive, and disproportionately affect poor, non-white neighborhoods.
The open-access paper is available for download here: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/17/4/497/pdf
Urban Creeks and the Unhoused
A panel discussion Tuesday 18 February 2025
3-5pm Rm 305 Bauer Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley
Creeks have always attracted the unhoused, offering relatively natural settings, water sources, and
commonly quieter environments than alternatives such as freeway underpasses. With increasingly
costly housing, the SF Bay region has experienced increasing populations of unhoused along urban
creeks. This intersection of the state’s massive housing shortage with the urban stream network
drives a set of issues, including the risk of flooding the people who live along these creeks and the
impacts of these encampments on water quality of the streams. There are no easy solutions, but
perhaps we can learn something from recent experience in the urban and peri-urban streams of
Contra Costa County, where issues are brought into sharp focus.
The panel featured insightful presentations from Amanda Booth (City of San Pablo), Daniel Barth (SOS Richmond), Chris Lim (Contra Costa RCD), and Mark Boucher (Contra Costa County Flood Control & Water Conservation District). After presentations, panelists and audience members engaged in discussion. This Riverlab event was part of the class Rivers & Cities (LA254-3) in the Dept of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, UC Berkeley.
The symposium was an in-person, free and open to the public event hosted on Saturday, December 7, 2024 9.30 am, 112 Bauer Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley.
PROGRAM:
9:30: Welcome by Zan Rubin (Balance Hydrologics and UC Berkeley)
Keynote Presentation by Erin Bray (San Francisco State University)
River mechanics for river restoration: How rivers warm and river rocks round (see bio
and abstract below)
10:30-12:00 Student Presentations
The Hydrologic and Geomorphic Response to Beaver Arrival on Rush Creek
Contrasting Goals and Outcomes: Comparing Restoration on Codornices and Wildcat
Creeks
A Decade Later: The Impacts of the Eden Landing Ecologic Reserve
Lost in Time: Evaluating step pool habitat two decades after restoration on Codornices
Creek
Assessing the Role of Marsh Restoration on Sedimentation, Flood Management, and Sea-
Level Rise: A Case Study of Walnut Creek
Cows and Water: How Grazing Alters our Waterways
12:00- 12:30 Concluding Panel: Reflections from Erin Bray (San Francisco State) and
Tami Church (US Army Corps of Engineers)Keynote Talk Abstract:
River mechanics for river restoration: How rivers warm and river rocks round
Along many rivers dams trap sediment and water released from the dam is cool and clear.
Downstream of the dam, temperature variability is controlled by climate that warms or
cools the water, the flow magnitude, and spectral properties of the water and the river’s
bed sediment. Separately, the grain size and shape of sediment on the bed is controlled by
the sediment supplied from hillslopes and fluvial sources, and the flow-driven abrasion
that contributes to particles getting smaller and rounder as they are transported along
stream. We developed a numerical river energy balance model to understand the controls
to river temperature. The Fluvial Energy Balance Model (FLUVIAL-EB) couples a full-
spectrum radiation balance model with turbulent heat fluxes, bed conduction, advection,
diffusion, and a 1D channel flow model over the length of the river, and is applied to
investigate temperatures along the San Joaquin River. We show that variations in the river temperature are sensitive to changes in the albedo of the sediment on the riverbed,
especially at smaller discharges and along abrupt gravel-to-sand transitions from dark
gravel to bright sand. A separate laboratory study uses a rock tumbler and angular rocks
sourced from nearby hillslope environments to investigate how river rocks round as they
tumble along river distances, to understand whether grain size reductions as opposed to
rounding is the dominant factor leading to sediment mass lost during abrasion. These two
studies highlight the importance of geomorphic processes on river sediment and
temperature, both of which support salmon spawning habitat.
Keynote Speaker:
Erin Bray is an Assistant Professor in the School of the Environment at San Francisco
State University (formerly the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences) where she leads
the Rivers Lab. Her research focuses on hydrology and fluvial geomorphology, with
emphasis on river processes and river restoration. Previously, she was an Assistant
Professor at California State University Northridge where she served as the Co-Lead for
the Water Science Program. Dr. Bray was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of
California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, supported under a
fellowship from the Delta Stewardship Council. She received her Ph.D. from the
University of California, Santa Barbara, her M.A. from Brown University, and her B.S.
from Cornell University. Dr. Bray’s research focuses on hydrology and fluvial
geomorphology, with an emphasis on river processes, river restoration, and water
resources management. She has developed a model that, together with field measurements
and climate data, can be used to study impacts of flow releases from dams and climate on
the energy balance and water temperature of rivers. She also conducts in-situ field
measurements of saturated hydraulic conductivity to better understand the impacts of
sediment transport, sediment permeability, and flow on patterns of hyporheic exchange,
and how those patterns generate and sustain physical processes that support salmon
spawning habitat.
Over 30 participants joined the shortcourse Geomorphic and Ecological Fundamentals of River Restoration at Sagehen Ck Field Station near Lake Tahoe in August. Weather conditions were ideal, and participants got wet wading in Sagehen Creek and swimming in Lake Tahoe. They saw a wide range of completed projects as well as sites slated for restoration, and made proposals for most effective restoration approaches. Each evening participants enjoyed discussion of the day’s adventures followed by a gourmet meal in plein air. Next year’s shortcourse is set for 18-22 August. Registration opens in January.
University of California Berkeley
Institute of International Studies, Philosophy Hall, Room 223
Monday, November 13, 2023 9am-12pm
Flood losses are increasing worldwide because of expanding urbanization in flood-prone lands and flood peaks super-charged by climate change. Across the globe, countries struggle to manage flood risk, drawing upon insurance, structural measures, and land use regulations. What can we learn from these international experiences to inform strategies in North America? In this workshop, a group of researchers, practitioners and policy-makers from the United States, Canada, and the European Union review the state of the art in flood risk management with emphasis on the interface between insurance, mapping, and land use planning regulations.
More event details here.
Efforts to conserve Lake Tahoe
Dr. Sudeep Chandra, Univ Nevada Reno
Friday (11/3) from 12-1pm in Mulford Room 36, UC Berkeley.
Dr. Sudeep Chandra is a Professor of Limnology in the Biology Department at the University of Nevada, Reno (USA). Sudeep Chandra serves as Director of the University’s Global Water Center: Solutions for Sustainability, the Ozmen Institute for Global Studies, and is the former Co-Director of the Lake Tahoe Science Advisory Council.
The talk is part of the Berkeley Wildlife & Conservation Seminar Series
Daniel Iacofano, MIG, Berkeley
A river floods. A flood control channel is built. Problem solved. Except that everyone hates it. Even the best river restoration plan or flood control plan won’t work if you don’t have the right people at the table before it’s a plan. You’ll need to draw diverse community members into an authentic conversation from the outset, to frame the problem, develop potential solutions, and agree on next steps—in person or in virtual meetings. Your key messages, outreach methods, languages and educational materials need to match your target audiences. Depending on where the waterway is, that can include environmentalists, the Army Corps, land developers, agricultural interests, recreationists, homeowners, nearby residents, businesses, unions and tribal representatives. How well you reach out to and engage those diverse interests will determine whether your river plan succeeds.
Event took place Tuesday 24 October.
Talk given by Daniel Iacofano, followed by a panel discussion with John Hart, Juliet Lamont, and Daniela Peña Corvillon
The Napa River in Napa, California. Photo courtesy of MIG, Inc.
Speaker bio:
Daniel Iacofano (Ph.D., FAICP, FASLA) is internationally recognized as an innovator and thought leader in urban planning and design, facilitation, and consensus building. Co-founder of the firm MIG, Daniel has worked with hundreds of communities and organizations around the world to think strategically and critically about achieving desired change. His projects have included a number of river projects, in which his team helped communities identify solutions to flooding problems that also restore ecological processes in rivers and human access to them. Notable among these was the Napa River project, which has been celebrated as a project that successfully reduced flood risk while restoring river processes.
Panelist bios:
Poet and environmental journalist John Hart is author of sixteen books and several hundred other published works, notably San Francisco Bay: portrait of an estuary (UC Press 2003). Winner of the James D. Phelan Award, the Commonwealth Club Medal in Californiana, and the David R. Brower Award for Service in the Field of Conservation.
Dr. Juliet Lamont is a founder and partner of the environmental consulting practice, Creekcats Environmental Partners LLC, and holds an MS in Wildland Resource Science and a PhD in Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley. She focuses on advancing ecosystem-based strategies for biodiversity restoration, climate resilience, and sustainable development. She advocates for the use of nature-based and “nature positive” solutions as a cornerstone for multi-benefit protection and restoration strategies.
Daniela Peña Corvillon is a Chilean Architect who holds an MLA in Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley (2013). She focuses on design and restoration of natural ecological functions at the interface of human and wild spaces. Daniela works at John Northmore Roberts & Associates in Berkeley, where she plans, designs, and manages various-scale projects that integrate human uses into natural areas, and restore natural functions in the urban environment, in California and elsewhere in the US and abroad.
Terje Tvedt, University of Bergen, Norway
Terje Tvedt, a Norwegian professor in global history, political science and geography, presented a lecture on The Nile: River of history and conflict, on Wednesday 15 March, in Bauer Wuster Hall, to an audience students, faculty, and researchers drawn from across the campus. Professor Tvedt has published numerous books on general water-society issues and on the river Nile in particular. Among them are a bibliography on the Nile in three volumes, “The River Nile in the Age of the British”, “Water and Society. Changing Perceptions on Societal and Historical Developments” (2020), and “The Nile. History’s Greatest River” (2021, translated into German, Chinese, Italian, Dutch, Italian, Serbian and Arabic). He has also made several TV-documentaries shown by among others National Geographic, Discovery Channels, Documentary Channel and Netflix. For the films, see his YouTube channel.
Tvedt’s lecture on the Nile was a multidisciplinary overview of the geography, hydrology and historical role of the river now running through 11 countries with about half a billion inhabitants, and through the heart of cities such as Cairo and Khartoum. The focus was on the background to current hydropolitics, especially the tense conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding the Renaissance dam on the Blue Nile. Tvedt also discussed the role of Southern Sudan in Nile geopolitics. The talk was sponsored by the Sather Center, Global Metropolitan Studies, Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, and Center for African Studies, UC Berkeley. A video of the talk (beginning after the first several minutes) is available online here.
A recording of the lecture (unfortunately missing the first five minutes of the lecture) is available below:
In this project, two faculty and five students each from Jackson State University (JSU) and UC Berkeley (UCB) will collaboratively assess sites along the Mississippi currently with public access, some of the riverfront without public access, and make recommendations for improving public access in light of current land use, flood control constraints, and evolving opportunities. Read more →
