Media Watch
Will Iran's climate inaction fuel rising disaster threats?
Reuters -
But Amir Aghakouchak, an Iranian-American professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine, who has written on water scarcity in the country, said he was not sure a higher profile would translate to action on the ground in Iran. "Unfortunately, when it comes to water and environmental management, I am not optimistic about the level of government engagement," he said. Read More
Big waves move railroad tracks, again, in south San Clemente
Orange County Register -
UC Irvine environmental engineering [Professor] Brett Sanders said those sand replenishment projects are needed. The drought the past few years is contributing to the area’s lack of sand. With no rain pushing sediment down the nearby creek, sand isn’t being redistributed naturally offshore. “One of the links is, there just hasn’t been enough sand supply from that creek to keep a beach that’s going to defend the rocks and railway from the stress of these waves events,” he said. “That beach has really thinned out over time because there’s no sand supply.” [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/news/ocregister] Read More
Monitoring a Pregnancy at Home With a Smartphone This wearable device provides real-time ECG monitoring of a fetus
IEEE Spectrum -
“Lullaby was made to push the boundaries of the field by creating an algorithm that could process high-resolution ECG in real time and on a wearable device,” explains Daniel Jilani, an undergraduate researcher at University of California, Irvine, who co-led the development of this technology. Read More
UCI tests out futuristic smart grid technology at faculty home
KCBS -
Some professors at UC Irvine, like John Smith, got to experience a part of the future after the university installed smart grid technology into their homes. … The UCI study wanted to test the performance of the electrical grid and reduce energy costs and emissions. … "We must have energy storage if we are to make a highly renewable future work," said [Jack] Brouwer, [professor and director Advanced Power and Energy Program]. Read More
Iranian oil province suffers from pollution, water scarcity
AL–Monitor -
“Like most parts of Iran, Khuzestan still doesn’t have a fully functioning wastewater collection and treatment facility. This means that a significant amount of waste, including human waste, ends up in our rivers and groundwater resources untreated,” said Amir Aghakouchak, a professor of civil engineering, environmental engineering, and earth system science at University of California, Irvine. Read More
Experts concerned with increased beach erosion in wake of Hurricane Kay
KCBS -
"We saw around five feet of vertical displacement of the sand," said UC Irvine Engineering Professor Brett Sanders. "That means that walkways down to the beach aren't accessible." Sanders says that the tropical storm isn't the only factor that contributed to the erosion, noting that Friday night brought a rare series of events unlike any California has seen in recent history. Read More
Natural News
States are emulating California’s “clean air” mandate by BANNING gas-powered vehicles -
(UCI) researchers have been conducting much of that study, learning what exactly will be needed to make all cars zero emissions over the next decade. “The grid does not currently have the capability to add millions of battery electric or even fuel-cell electric vehicles today,” said Jack Brouwer, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCI. “So, we have some time to make reasonable investments in the grid to enable this to actually happen and to happen well.” Read More
How to Save a Forest by Burning It
The New York Times -
“Fire has made us civilized, but we still don’t understand it fully,” said Tirtha Banerjee, [UCI engineering assistant professor] …. “Scientists have been “just completely caught off guard about how fast things are changing,” said James T. Randerson, [UCI Chancellor’s Professor, Earth system science]. … Banerjee and his team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers flew their drone repeatedly over the area, mapping it ….. By comparing images from before, during and after the burn, Banerjee’s team could pinpoint exactly how the fire had transformed the forest floor. [Subscription required, campus-wide access provided by UCI Libraries. Sign-up here: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/nytimes] Read More
Combined force of fire and water
Nature -
Ariane Jong-Levinger [engineering graduate student] and colleagues from the University of California, Irvine used stochastic modelling to study the effects that changes in extreme rainfall and wildfires have on flood-protection infrastructure such as flood channels and debris basins in a mountain watershed similar to those found in southern California. They find that more frequent and severe fires lead to more events that exceed the capacity of the protective infrastructure. Read More
Other materials stories that may be of interest
American Ceramic Society -
Engineers push nanostructure properties to new extremes. Researchers at University of California, Irvine increased the energy absorption and strength of nanoarchitected structures by fabricating interpenetrating phased composites. Read More