The University of Arizona Alumnus / Fall 2009

Sustaining Planet Earth …and Us, Too

by Ford Burkhart

When two gamblers and a saloonkeeper donated 40 barren acres for the UA campus in 1885, nobody asked if the place, all creosote, prickly pear, and scorpions, with a broken-down well, was “sustainable.” That word is the turf of a new wave of world-class experts at the UA, now a lush 400 acres. Our oldest well, south of Old Main, still pumps water up from 230 feet deep. But how sustainable is this giant university, and indeed the modern desert Southwest? This is the U.S. region seen as most vulnerable to climate change, and that has spurred an urgent response by hundreds of UA experts. They know that the desert Southwest region may be among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

They know that translating the talk into action will be no easy task. It will take profound changes in how humans live on the Earth, over many generations, which in turn seems overwhelming. “But that only shows the need to break it down into smaller steps that are easy to implement,” says Janice Cervelli, dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, or CALA. The steps might entail smart lightbulbs, better insulation, walking to work, or taking a bus. “Don’t rely on government to do everything,” Cervelli adds. “If we demand sustainability, business will deliver options.”

Want to sample the latest action? Check out the site where students from CALA and the College of Engineering, working with the in the Southwest to be included among the 20 international competitors, in large part because of its strides in sustainability, Cervelli says.

Few other campuses have moved so far, so fast, UA faculty members say, and hundreds here are involved, some of them leading lights on environmental change.

“In the big picture, we have to respond — to educate, to study, to apply knowledge, to be smarter in the use of every resource,” says Joaquin Ruiz, executive dean of the Colleges of Letters, Arts, and Science; and dean of the College of

Science. “Energy is important, but water is, too. For example, using trough mirrors to heat oil to make steam. That can use a ton of water. Photovoltaics on rooftops use no water. So how do we generate electricity? We are making a huge push on renewable energy — at the mirror lab, material sciences, chemistry, over in optical sciences.

“Our research ranges from agriculture to architecture to ecology, to the research focus at Biosphere 2, in the Santa Ritas, and at Tumamoc Hill.” Ruiz adds, “I am not worried. I envision a future where we can bring water from the oceans, desalinate it, and purify it. As rainwater patterns change, our vegetation is going to change. It may be even more beautiful, but it will look different, maybe 20 years from now.”

On campus, the UA is walking the talk. Buildings are converting to solar electricity, smarter temperature controls, hardware in toilets that is, well, more elegant. Purple pipes mark reclaimed water. Shiny silver tanks collect rainwater. Black solar panels emerge on rooftops.

At the UA Visitor Center on University Boulevard, dramatic displays of water harvesting and photovoltaics inspire the city. Solar panels almost fill the roof to the south. Thump the tall drums to the east — you’ll hear the rainwater saved for desert plants on the berms (ridges) and in the swales (depressions), built by student volunteers. A few miles to the north, the Campus Agricultural Center has similar solar panels at work.

South of Sixth Street, the 600,000-gallon Student Recreation Center pool will be heated with solar panels. An expansion there will give the UA its first silver certificate under LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. That’s the standard for all new UA buildings.

Solar panels and heating or shade panels are planned for McClelland Hall, McClelland Park, and the Hillenbrand pool’s 1.1 million gallons of water. They have been installed at the Second Street Garage.

“From research to student activity to the manner in which we manage our physical plant, the UA is creating a culture of conservation and sustainability that this century demands of us,” President Robert N. Shelton says, speaking of plans to generate 500 kilowatts of solar power on campus rooftops.

In one national rating, the College Sustainability Report Card, the UA received a B for sustainability, with an A for the administration’s effort. (By comparison, Stanford had an A minus, and USC a C plus.) The report cites a strong 2003 Comprehensive Campus Plan — composting, recycling, water harvesting, a rain garden at the CALA, bus passes, the car-sharing program, campus shuttles, and 11,000 bicycle parking spaces. Not bad for a start.

We listened to four faculty experts and their message was consistent: The UA is one of the top places in the world conducting sustainability research.

High and Dry: Water Worries in the Desert Southwest

Fewer swimming pools? Smaller lawns? Sustainable golf courses? Where do we look for answers to the future of the shrinking water supply in the desert Southwest? The key questions are more complicated than eliminating a pool or some grass. They will involve the redesign of whole communities, perhaps with more public pools and limits on private ones, and more water banking, a kind of managed aquifer recharge that looks ahead to dry years.

Arizona found early answers to water in big projects. In 1903 we launched the Salt River Project near Phoenix, with dams and canals to aid agriculture. In the 1960s the Central Arizona Project promised a 336-mile canal from the Colorado River to Tucson. It was completed in 1993, but the use of its water still stirs controversy in Tucson.

What’s the next big source? Reclaimed wastewater? The giant Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station cools its plant with treated sewage effluent from Phoenix. Desalinated oceanwater piped up from Mexico? It’s getting careful study.

A big part of the answer is conservation. The UA campus has emerged as a model for its neighbors, with increasing use of a new symbol of the future — purple pipes. They carry reclaimed water to irrigate the UA’s signature lawns, trees, and flowers. Design of campus buildings now emphasizes careful water use, and that policymaking reflects the regional and national debate that all experts say is urgently needed to set policy for the next decades. A central player at all of those levels is Sharon Megdal, a professor and expert in state and regional water policy.

Speaking of Carbon Caps and Trades

Diana Liverman returned to the UA in February from the University of Oxford, where she was the director and a senior fellow of the Environmental Change Institute. She and Jonathan Overpeck direct the UA Institute for Environment and Society. Liverman studies the effects of climate change and the ways people respond to it, especially in the developing world, and Latin America in particular. Her research also examines the growth of carbon markets for managing and trading greenhouse gas emissions. The Institute for Environment and Society, formerly the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, coordinates environmental activities and research across the campus, working closely with existing research centers and the newly created schools with environmental focuses.

Liverman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on America’s Climate Choices. In that role, she is one of the UA’s most prominent voices among the scientists and political and business leaders who advise Washington and international organizations on policy options for meeting climate challenges. Liverman has chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, and was one of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning authors for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report.

Sustainable Design: Two Schools of Thought

Sustainability is one focus of the UA’s recent academic redesign. UA President Robert N. Shelton’s effort to reorganize programs has produced two new divisions to tackle the study of the environment and climate change. One will be called the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, or SEES. The other is the School of Sustainable Engineered Systems, or SSES.

The science-oriented SEES contains six units, five of them from the College of Science — geosciences, hydrology and water resources, atmospheric sciences, the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, and the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory. The sixth unit is in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences — the Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science. SEES, which was designed by the participating units and is headed by Karl Flessa, aims to help its 85 faculty be more collaborative and competitive in seeking grants, encourage interdisciplinary research and teaching, and deliver undergraduate courses more efficiently. Geosciences, hydrology and water resources, and soil, water, and environmental science offer undergraduate majors. And all these units offer master’s and Ph.D. programs for about 200 graduate students in all.

In the College of Engineering, the new SSES contains the Departments of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Mining and Geological Engineering, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Systems and Industrial Engineering.

Biosphere 2, at the Nexus of Water and Energy

In 1991, about 40 miles north of Tucson, a novel experiment began in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Eight team members were to be sealed for two years in a three-acre world under glass called Biosphere 2, with a rainforest and a 25-foot-deep, million-gallon ocean, to see if the Biosphere could be self-sustaining. (The Earth is considered Biosphere 1.) By 1993, the original experiment had run its course. In 1995 Columbia University took over management of the facility, and in 1996 began experiments on how high levels of CO2 affect various ecological zones, or biomes. Since 2007, the UA has operated the campus, known as B2, and has begun its own experiments in the tropical landscape, with its banana trees and vines (lianas), and in a newly constructed landscape. B2 has launched solar-energy tests with 470 photovoltaic modules producing up to 40 kilowatts of DC current, converted to AC to help run the campus. Pierre Meystre, director of the B2 Institute, an interdisciplinary research arm, hopes the project will have global impact on the future of solar power. B2’s director, Travis Huxman, a UA professor and ecologist, says the site is booming with many other ideas.

A Biosphere 2 Snapshot: Turning Back Ecological Time

Why build three giant hills indoors at Biosphere 2? Because just any old Arizona hill won’t let you control variables like rain, temperature, humidity, or greenhouse gases. The new B2 hills and slopes, sealed off from our environment, will create a tightly controlled critical-zone laboratory that will lead to new discoveries in hydrology, geology, ecology, and atmospheric sciences. Building their own hills is a bit like recreating Earth’s creation, but doing it under glass at B2 lets them record the first weathering of soil, down to a molecular level; videotape roots as they grow; and measure what happens to each drop of rain, to each element and molecule cycling through the system. Having three identical hills lets scientists replicate, stepping up the statistical significance.

UA faculty members on the B2 Earth Science steering committee led the plan for the B2 hills, each about 100 feet by 36 feet, with a gentle slope, about 10 degrees or so, and soil about 3 feet deep over bedrock. Step one is making the dirt — fine-grinding 4,000 tons of basalt rock, found near Flagstaff, to a sandy loam texture. B2’s hill slopes have attracted global attention because other experiments have been considered too small (on a greenhouse or lab scale), or too large (an entire watershed) to offer controls, or were less interdisciplinary than B2’s effort.

Dozens of UA researchers are playing roles from hydrology and soil physics to geomorphology, geochemistry, and plant and microbial ecology to atmospheric science. Javier

Espeleta, the Biosphere 2 associate director of science and an expert in the ecology of plant roots, coordinates the work. Peter Troch, a professor of hydrology and water resources, is guiding the construction phase. Jon Chorover, a professor of environmental chemistry in soil, water, and environmental science, helped select the soil and model its geochemistry. Jon Pelletier, associate professor of geomorphology in geosciences, works with the design and the soil selection. Construction begins this fall.

Killer heat and a dearth of water — perfect conditions for a garden

Sustainability is the primary goal when starting any project in the desert, says Todd Briggs of Ten Eyck Landscape Architects, one of the primary designers of the Underwood Garden just south of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture Building on the UA campus. And water conservation is a big part of sustainability. The gardeners reuse water, he says, “as many times as we possibly can.”

Part of the Underwood Family Sonoran Landscape Lab, the garden is a teaching tool for UA students, and it also models techniques for desert gardeners in the community, says Ron Stoltz, a professor in and the director of the UA School of Landscape Architecture.

In the summertime, heat-absorbing concrete, brick, and asphalt can push city temperatures up to 20 degrees higher than in the countryside. A properly planned garden can help turn down the urban heat, Briggs says. In the

Underwood Garden, sidewalks and other concrete areas are shaded.

The Underwood Family Sonoran Landscape Laboratory recently was honored by the Arizona Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. At the chapter’s annual awards ceremony in Phoenix, Ten Eyck Landscape Architects won the Award of Excellence and the President’s Award for the best project in Arizona landscape architecture. The garden was one of five design projects honored.

Sharon Megdal:

Some people say not to worry about water. “Treatment methods are improving all the time,” they say. I tell my students and audiences that most people have no idea of the challenges in the Colorado River watershed, and especially in Arizona. We have growing demands, but we have not identified the “next bucket of water.” There is no specific goal of sustainability in our state statutes. They focus on “safe yield.” And that gets complicated very quickly. Is “safe” never having a decline in water tables? If an area has vast stores of water, you can allow some declines, right? But how much is some? Where do we draw the line, especially on using fossil groundwater?

What I saw in the newspapers when Tucson was turning back Central Arizona Project water didn’t always make sense to me. People would tell me, “I saw this in the paper.” But so often there may be an outright error. Focusing on the news can create problems of its own. There are stories about the probability of Lake Mead reaching low levels and concerns about the Colorado River running dry. As to the future, I am on the optimistic side. If we put our heads together, we will come up with solutions. But the pessimist in me says I don’t see enough people wanting to put their heads together.

We’ve got to work on the issues before they become crises. The world is changing in nonlinear ways. The past doesn’t forecast the future. We could get surprised, in a negative direction. It’s a huge challenge for water managers that there is so much uncertainty.

As the state continues to grow, we must pay more attention to community design. The availability of community swimming pools, for example, may discourage individuals from putting in their own. We all like the opportunity to cool off on a hot day, but many private pools seem to be hardly used. Arizonans believe in private-property rights, and I don’t see a need to take people’s rights away. But we can offer attractive options to people living here. You can’t retrofit overnight, but we need new thinking.

My students are quite concerned about sustainability, and some are outright worried. They are asking what they can do to help increase the knowledge base and to support better decisionmaking. Their worry can translate into positive outcomes when they say, “I want to work for an agency that works on resolving these things.”

Sharon Megdal is the C. W. and Modene Neely Professor of Excellence in Agriculture and Life Science in the Departments of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Soil, Water, and Environmental Science. She also is the director of the UA Water Resources Research Center. Megdal teaches Arizona water policy and directs the UA Water Sustainability Program, funded by the state Technology and Research Initiative Fund, known as TRIF. She is an elected member of the board of the Central Arizona Project.