Project Archive

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Description:  This project engaged Disadvantaged Communities (DAC) residents in the design and effective use of alternative, non-potable water supplies, low water-use (xeriscape) landscaping designs, and flood prevention projects. The project has led to the completion of designs and cost estimates, and identification of lead agencies for permitting and implementation, for water-resilient landscapes and the use of alternative non-potable water reuse on San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) properties, and at sites within the cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista. These designs, when implemented, will integrate alternative non-potable water use, and drought- and flood-resistant features, along with new or revitalized urban agriculture, into a variety of settings including state and municipal public parks; common greenspace areas of single- and multi-family residential properties; an elementary-middle school; a service building at a public research institute; and three very different roadway and bikeway improvement projects.

Timeline: 2017 - 2020

Participants:  Dr. Keith Pezzoli, Principal Investigator; Juli Beth Hinds, AICP, Co-PI; Alison Pau, Department of Urban Studies & Planning ; Dr. Ilya Zaslavsky, San Diego Supercomputer Center

Funding:  California Department of Water Resources Proposition 1 Disadvantaged Communities Program

Partners:  San Diego Housing Commission; Public Health Alliance of Southern California; City of Chula Vista; City of Imperial Beach; Tijuana River Valley National Estuarine Research Reserve

Description: The Bioregional Science Gateway supports civically-engaged researchers who are working on some of the 21st centuries most urgent and interlocking challenges (e.g., climate change, ecological degradation, environmental justice, economic inequality, housing, green infrastructure, renewable energy, food-water-soil vulnerabilities, chronic disease). The Gateway provides tools for creating and sharing diverse data sets, building knowledge networks and interactive maps. The focus is on the Southern California-Northern Baja California bioregion, including the San Diego-Tijuana binational city-region. The goal is to establish a common pool resource that researchers and their community partners can jointly use to design and carry out problem-solving, solutions-oriented activities aimed at improving health and wellbeing in coupled human and natural environments. 

Timeline: Ongoing

Participants: Keith Pezzoli; Kelsey Lindner; Jeff Fritsch; Ilya Zaslavsky (SDSC); 

Partners: Science Gateway Institute; San Diego Supercomputer Center; UC San Diego Division of Social Science

EQUIPPED - Engaged thru Quality University-community Infrastructure for Participatory-research and Popular EDucation

Description: Getting Nighborhoods EQUIPPED aims to build trusted relationships and local knowledge networks in several Southeastern San Diego's disadvantaged neighborhoods. Together our project's scientists, researchers, students, residents and allied organizations will design and co-produce civic infrastructure to enhance university-community connectivity. The infrastructure will take the form of a Neighborhood Learning and Research Center where students, citizen scientists and faculty collaborate with residents on projects addressing the authentic demands of local communities.

We have 4 main objectives:

1. Activate a popular education model that increases food literacy at a neighborhood scale while inspiring civically engaged youth leadership in food security planning, policy, and healthy community development. 
2. Enhance the role of research universities and science in public reasoning and interventions aimed at eradicating root causes of food insecurity and unhealthy living conditions in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
3. Increase levels of public trust in our institutions of higher education by respectfully and authentically leveling the playing field among participants (residents, scientists, researchers,s tudents, experts/non-experts) in public reasoning, policy and planning concerning urban food systems and the sustainability transition.
4. Build an inspired network of mentors, citizen scentists, popular educators, and projects that provides students with cutting edge, innovative, transdisciplinary opportunities to gain experiential learning and technical training essential to advancing food literacy, food security, and, more broadly, the sustainability transition.  

Timeline: 2017 - 2019

Participants: Keith Pezzoli (BRC); Mirle Rabinowitz-Bussell (BRC); Leslie Lewis (BRC); Paul Watson (Gloabl ARC); Bill Oswald (Global ARC)

Funding: University California Office of the President

Partners: The Global ARC

Description: The Life Course Scholars Program creates a unique interdisciplinary, cross-generational, multi-site learning experience for UC San Diego undergraduates that aims to transform their understanding of aging, health, learning and research, as well as connect them more deeply to the people and places of surrounding San Diego communities.

 Timeline: Ongoing

Participants: Mirle Rabinowitz-Bussell (BRC); Leslie Lewis (BRC)

Funding: Bioregional Center

Partners: Life Course Scholars webpage 

Description: This project will develop participatory tools, spatial analytics models and civically engaged processes to help residents, municipalities, public agencies, and tribes select best locations for green infrastructure, such as rainwater harvesting and storm water biofiltration, and urban agriculture, such as community gardens and urban food forests.

Metrolab has two main goals: 

1. Enable Healthy Placemaking (with a focus on improving affordable  housing and its immediate soundings, including  alley ways and public spaces) using green infrastructure  designed with input from the environmental health sciences,  architecture and design, landscape ecology and climate action planning
2. Strengthen university-­‐community relationships, research-­‐to-­‐action  networks and cyberinfrastructure for participatory planning and decision support  systems that can help residents, researchers, and public/private sector agencies build new, preserve and/or improve existing affordable housing stock and green infrastructure.

Timeline: Ongoing

Participants: Keith Pezzoli (BRC); Juli Beth Hinds (BRC)

Funding: MetroLab

Partners: City of San Diego

Description: The central concern of the UCSD-SRC is fatty liver disease and its complications. Cirrhosis and cancer has increased dramatically in the U.S., exhibiting a 3 – fold increase in the past 20 years. Environmental exposure to chemical toxicants statistically worsens liver disease in susceptible populations, such as the obese or those with diabetes, resulting in very similar liver pathophysiology as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and the more serious condition nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). With clinical studies showing environmental toxicants can lead to NAFLD/NASH in the absence of overt obesity, called Toxicant Associated Steatohepatitis, the UCSD-SRC will be investigating the cumulative risk of toxicant exposure, obesity and diabetes towards the development of liver cirrhosis and cancer. Also included in the UCSD-SRC are efforts to bioremediate and detect environmental toxicants, with additional support coming from Superfund Research Center (2017-2022) 2 sophisticated research cores, graduate student and postdoctoral training, plus community engagement and research translation efforts.

People living in disadvantaged neighborhoods with high levels of obesity, poverty, poor nutrition, health disparities, and exposures to environmental toxicants are subject to “cumulative impacts” that put them at greater risk for illness and cancer, including a toxicant induced form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) called TASH (Toxicant-Associated Steatohepatitis). UC San Diego’s Superfund Research Center’s researchers will examine diverse mechanisms by which toxicant exposure leads to TASH, often synergizing with pre-existing obesity-driven NAFLD. To reduce cumulative impacts and lower risks that lead to TASH will require effort on two fronts simultaneously: (1) Develop knowledge and understanding of how cumulative risks (e.g., obesity, poor nutrition, exposure to toxicants) impact human health, and (2) Promote interventions using this knowledge in policy, planning & decision-making to create healthy and ecologically sustainable human settlements. Community engagement has a vital role to play in advancing both fronts, especially the interventions. One of the most significant barriers in this realm is the difficulty of getting equitable community participation engaged in the right places (e.g., at the decision making tables). By empowering youth, conducting workshops, collaborating with communities to develop further research and interventions, developing culturally responsive multimedia science communication tools, and modeling innovative best practices in community engagement, the CEC extends the reach and impact of our Superfund research collaboration. The CEC aims to build the capacity of certain targeted vulnerable
communities in U.S. EPA Region 9, including urban, rural and tribal areas in San Diego County and Imperial County; and in Mexico to identify, prioritize and resolve environmental and public health issues related to environmental exposures and Superfund toxicants.

Timeline: 2017-2022

Participants: Keith Pezzoli (BRC); Kelsey Lindner (BRC)

Funding: NIEHS

Partners: The Global Arc; UC San Diego Center for US-Mexican Studies; Comite Civico

Description: The central concern of the UCSD-SRC is fatty liver disease and its complications. Cirrhosis and cancer has increased dramatically in the U.S., exhibiting a 3 – fold increase in the past 20 years. Environmental exposure to chemical toxicants statistically worsens liver disease in susceptible populations, such as the obese or those with diabetes, resulting in very similar liver pathophysiology as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and the more serious condition nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). With clinical studies showing environmental toxicants can lead to NAFLD/NASH in the absence of overt obesity, called Toxicant Associated Steatohepatitis, the UCSD-SRC will be investigating the cumulative risk of toxicant exposure, obesity and diabetes towards the development of liver cirrhosis and cancer. Also included in the UCSD-SRC are efforts to bioremediate and detect environmental toxicants, with additional support coming from Superfund Research Center (2017-2022) 2 sophisticated research cores, graduate student and postdoctoral training, plus community engagement and research translation efforts.

The Research Translation Core (RTC) will help all of UC San Diego’s SRC project/core leaders translate their scientific knowledge, data, models and technological innovations to appropriate audiences. We will work closely with public and private sector entities—including the EPA, ATSDR, CDC, Nonprofits, Biotech, County health providers, rural and city planning departments, Tribal Environmental Agencies, the NIEHS and other SRCs. The overall objective is to improve capacity for detecting and remediating hepatotoxic Superfund chemicals with a focus on toxicant induced liver disease, especially toxicant associated steatohepatitis (TASH). People living in disadvantaged neighborhoods with high levels of obesity, poverty, poor nutrition, health disparities, and exposures to environmental toxicants are subject to “cumulative impacts” that put them at greater risk for illness and cancer. In light of this problem the RTC will work with all the project/core leaders, including the Community Engagement Core, Training Core, Genetics and Metabolomics Core, Admin Core, and Technology Transfer to translate the SRC’s evolving knowledge and understanding of how cumulative risks (e.g., obesity, poor nutrition, exposure to toxicants) impact human health, and promote Interventions using this knowledge in regulatory policy, planning & decision-making to create healthy and ecologically sustainable human settlements, and meet Superfund mandates. The RTC has access to urban and rural sites in California (San Diego County and Imperial County) and Mexico
(Tijuana) where place-based interventions are underway to reduce cumulative risks and health disparities impacting Hispanic and Native American communities.

Timeline: 2017-2022

Participants: Keith Pezzoli (BRC); Ilya Zaslavsky (SDSC/BRC); Kelsey Lindner (BRC)

Funding: NIEHS

Partners: Public Health Alliance of Southern California; UC San Diego Center for US-Mexican Studies

Description: In this San Diego-based project, we analyze the relationship between the informal economy, community gardens and healthy food options.

In this project, the Water Quality Scenario Planning Model is used to compare scenarios with two different types of multi-family residential development, using two different approaches to stormwater mitigation.

Goal

To evaluate whether off-site green infrastructure solutions can help to meet stormwater mitigation requirements in a cost-effective manner.

Objectives

• Provide a comparison of the costs of on-site stormwater mitigation measures with those of off-site measures for a typical residential project.
• Evaluate the sensitivity of results to changes in the pricing of the off-site mitigation project.

Project Description

In our demonstration project we used the Water Quality Scenario Planning Model to evaluate hypothetical site plans for two different types of multi-family residential development on a 2.6-acre vacant site at Euclid Avenue and Market Street in the Encanto Community in southeastern San Diego. The demonstration project also looked at two different approaches for meeting stormwater mitigation requirements for the projects pursuant to the latest regulations promulgated by the San Diego Region Water Quality Control Board (SDRWQCB) for the Chollas Creek Watershed, where the project site is located. The new regulations, which set strict limits on how much stormwater can run off a particular property, are incorporated into the Water Quality Improvement Plan that has been developed for the Pueblo/Chollas Creek Watershed and approved by SDRWQCB. These new regulations are intended to reduce the flow of contaminated urban runoff into San Diego’s waterways and coastal zone. The first set of stormwater-mitigation scenarios assumed that all mitigation requirements would be met through on-site control measures. The second set of scenarios assumed that 50 percent of mitigation requirements would be met through on-site measures while the other 50 percent would be met through off-site “green infrastructure” measures to be installed on a future city park site. The results of the analysis indicated that the estimated costs to the developer of using 100 percent on-site versus 50 percent on-site / 50 percent off-site mitigation measures were comparable. However, the use of off-site measures would lead to additional community benefits by providing funding to the city to help cover the costs of future park development.

Project Status: Began in January 2014 and concluded in November 2015