Jean-Daniel Saphores

Taking the “Waste” Out of “Wastewater” for Human Water Security and Ecosystem Sustainability

Humans create vast quantities of wastewater through inefficiencies and poor management of water systems. The wasting of water poses sustainability challenges, depletes energy reserves, and undermines human water security and ecosystem health. Here we review emerging approaches for reusing wastewater and minimizing its generation. These complementary options make the most of scarce freshwater resources, serve the varying water needs of both developed and developing countries, and confer a variety of environmental benefits. Their widespread adoption will require changing how freshwater is sourced, used, managed, and priced.

HOUSEHOLD WILLINGNESS TO RECYCLE ELECTRONIC WASTE - An Application to California

Electronic waste (e-waste) has become the main contributor of lead to landfills in the United States. Households also store large volumes of e-waste, yet little is known about their willingness to recycle e-waste. This article starts filling this gap based on a 2004 mail survey of California households. Using multivariate models, the authors find that gender, education, convenience, and environmental beliefs but not income or political affiliation are key factors explaining the willingness to drop off e-waste at recycling centers. A comparison of an ordered probit with a semi-nonparametric extended ordered probit model of the survey responses shows that the latter better predicts less frequent answers. The results suggest targeting public education programs about recycling at teenagers or younger adults and making recycling more convenient for older adults; moreover, e-waste drop-off centers should first be created in communities that already offer curbside collection programs for conventional recyclable products.

Information and the decision to recycle: results from a survey of US households

This paper relies on a unique dataset collected during a national survey of US households to explore how different sources of information (print, television, radio, family/friends, work/school and others) influence the decision to start recycling. Although print media are influential, it is found that face-to-face communication (through family/friends or work/school) is the most effective medium to get people to start recycling. However, it is even better to provide households with recycling information from multiple sources. The respondents in this study identify concerns about storage space, time and the safety of recycling as the main obstacles to start recycling. In addition, age and ethnicity are statistically significant but not income or education. These findings should be useful for crafting information campaigns designed to boost recycling, although to be successful these campaigns need to incorporate findings from environmental psychology and knowledge of specific communities.

The Economic Threshold with a Stochastic Pest Population: A Real Options Approach

Using real options,this paper formulates an optimal stopping model for applying pest control measures when the density of a pest population varies randomly. A delay between successive pesticide applications is introduced to analyze the farmers expected marginal cost of reentry. This model is applied to the control of a foliar pest of apples via a pesticide, and is solved numerically. A sensitivity analysis shows that the pest density that should trigger pesticide use can vary significantly with the pest density volatility. Incorporating pest randomness into simple decision rules may thus help better manage the chemicals applied to soils and crops. Copyright 2000, Oxford University Press.

How much e-waste is there in US basements and attics? Results from a national survey.

The fate of used electronic products (e-waste) is of increasing concern because of their toxicity and the growing volume of e-waste. Addressing these concerns requires developing the recycling infrastructure, but good estimates of the volume of e-waste stored by US households are still unavailable. In this context, we make two contributions based on a national random survey of 2136 US households. First, we explain how much e-waste is stored by US households using count models. Significant explanatory variables include age, marital and employment status, ethnicity, household size, previous e-waste recycling behavior, and to some extent education, home ownership, and understanding the consequences of recycling, but neither income nor knowledge of e-waste recycling laws. Second, we estimate that on average, each US household has 4.1 small (<or=10 pounds) and 2.4 large e-waste items in storage. Although these numbers are likely lower bounds, they are higher than recent US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates (based on narrower product categories). This suggests that the backlog of e-waste in the US is likely larger than generally believed; it calls for developing the recycling infrastructure but also for targeted recycling campaigns.

Adapting Urban Water Systems to a Changing Climate: Lessons from the Millennium Drought in Southeast Australia

Feature pubs.acs.org/est Adapting Urban Water Systems to a Changing Climate: Lessons from the Millennium Drought in Southeast Australia Stanley B. Grant,* ,†,‡ Tim D. Fletcher, ⊥ David Feldman, § Jean-Daniel Saphores, †,§ Perran L. M. Cook, # Mike Stewardson, ‡ Kathleen Low, † Kristal Burry, ∇ and Andrew J. Hamilton ∥ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, E4130 Engineering Gateway, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-2175, United States Department of Infrastructure Engineering, Melbourne School of Engineering, Engineering Block D, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Victoria, Australia Department of Planning, Policy, and Design, 300G Social Ecology I, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-7075, United States Department of Agriculture and Food Systems, The University of Melbourne, 940 Dookie−Nalinga Road, Dookie College, Victoria 3647, Australia Melbourne School of Land and Environment, The University of Melbourne, Burnley Campus, 500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia Water Studies Centre, School of Chemistry, Monash University, Victoria 3800, Australia Melbourne School of Land and Environment, The University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus, 207 Bouverie Street, Victoria 3052, Australia the way Melburnians source and use their water resources and discuss what these changes may portend for other large cities in water-scarce and climate-change-vulnerable regions of the world, in particular, the Southwest region of the United States. MELBOURNE’S WATER SUPPLY Melbourne sources most of its water from protected stream catchments located in uninhabited mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests to the north and northeast of the city (Figure 1). Runoff from these protected catchments flows by gravity into ten harvesting reservoirs and, from there, through a network of aqueducts and pipelines to storage reservoirs where it is distributed, after minimal treatment, to local service reservoirs. Since the first harvesting reservoir was built in the mid-1800s, Melbourne’s protected catchments have provided the city with a safe, low-energy, and mostly reliable source of high quality drinking water. However, they have also left the city vulnerable to water shortages during periods of very low precipitation. 5 To buffer against water shortages, Melbourne recently invested in various water supply augmentation schemes, including an interbasin transfer pipeline (the North−South or Sugarloaf Pipeline) and the largest desalination plant in the Southern Hemisphere (the Wonthaggi Desalination Plant) (Figure 1). These two projects were built at a capital cost of approximately AU

Harvesting a renewable resource under uncertainty

700 million 6 and AU

Australia's Drought: Lessons for California

6 billion, 7 respec- tively, and can deliver annually up to 75 and 150 GL of water to Melbourne; combined, that equates to about 40% of the city’s present day municipal water demand. However, since their completion in 2010 (Sugarloaf Pipeline) and 2012 (Wonthaggi Desalination Plant), neither A LONG HISTORY OF DROUGHT IN MELBOURNE Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent, and its population is one of the most urban. As of 2010, 89% of Australia’s 21 million inhabitants lived in urban areas. 1 Finding adequate water resources to sustain Australia’s cities is an ongoing challenge. 2 Nowhere is that more apparent than in Melbourne, a coastal city of approximately 4 million people located on the country’s southeastern coast. Over its 166-year history, Melbourne has experienced eight major droughts. The most recent one, known as the Millennium Drought, started in 1997 and lasted more than a decade. By 2009, below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures drained the city’s drinking-water reservoirs and stoked bush fires, including the “Black Saturday” fire that damaged 30% of the city’s water supply catchment and claimed 173 lives. 3 The Millennium Drought also altered public perceptions about global climate change, water conservation, and water-use behaviors, and energized city managers and politicians to adopt a wide range of approaches for augmenting water supplies and conserving water resources, although the contribution of climate change to the Millennium drought, while plausible, remains unproven. 4 In this paper, we explore how the Millennium Drought changed

On Jumps and ARCH Effects in Natural Resource Prices: An Application to Pacific Northwest Stumpage Prices

Abstract This paper presents a theory of harvesting that allows for partial harvests and accounts for the risk of extinction, for biological assets with size-dependent stochastic growth. The harvesting decision is formulated as a disinvestment problem in continuous time and generalized Faustmann formulas are derived. The probability of extinction is then analyzed for a wide class of growth functions. An illustration based on the logistic Brownian motion shows that both optimal biomass at harvest and harvest size do not vary monotonically with uncertainty. More generally, this paper illustrates the importance of properly accounting for barriers in stochastic investment problems.

Adopting Lead-Free Electronics: Policy Differences and Knowledge Gaps

COMMENTARY Refl ective scientifi c treatises Strengthening citizen science LETTERS I BOOKS I POLICY FORUM I EDUCATION FORUM I PERSPECTIVES LETTERS edited by Jennifer Sills 28 MARCH 2014 sumptive activities—such as daytime lawn watering and car washing—to rules promot- ing efficient water use—such as require- ments for shutoff valves on hoses. Out of those temporary restrictions, permanent restrictions grew. Some areas in Australia still restrict daytime sprinkler use. Perhaps most relevant for worried Californians is how the Australian public received these changes. Studies cite an overall spirit of goodwill and cooperation fostered by the stress of drought (6). The Millennium Drought brought about profound changes in Australians’ concep- tion of the environment, climate change, and water. The sticking power of those les- sons and the success of the resulting policies and strategies will be tested by the next big drought. One lesson California can glean from the Australian experience is empower- ment. Individuals making frugal water deci- sions can make a big difference in urban areas. Water markets and other measures that increase the fl exibility of irrigation farmers in their response to drought can have big payoffs. Sustaining critical environmental water requirements will provide the basis for postdrought environmental recovery. A spirit of cooperation rather than contention can prevail even when tough decisions are made to address the needs of farmers and city residents. AMIR AGHAKOUCHAK, 1 * DAVID FELDMAN, 1 MICHAEL J. STEWARDSON, 2 JEAN-DANIEL SAPHORES, 1 STANLEY GRANT, 1,2 BRETT SANDERS 1 The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. 2 Melbourne School of Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia. *Corresponding author. E-mail: amir.a@uci.edu References 1. A. I. Dijk et al., Water Resources Res. 49, 1040 (2013). 2. Z. Hao et al., Sci. Data 1, 1 (2014). 3. S. Dolnicar, A. I. Schafer, J. Environ. Manage. 90, 888 VOL 343 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on March 27, 2014 MOST OF CALIFORNIA IS SUFFERING FROM AN extreme drought, and storage levels in the major reservoirs are well below historic lev- els. For the past several months, an unusually stubborn ridge of high pressure off the West Coast of the United States has been blocking normal winter storms and the rain they carry. California’s history of drought has led to state- wide strategies to save water, but Californian residents and policy-makers can do even more: They can look to the story of Australia’s experi- ence with a drought so intense and long-lasting that it was dramatically dubbed the Millennium Drought (1). The Millennium Drought lasted from 1997 until late 2009 (2). Australia’s economy and environment were hit hard. The drought accel- erated the same trends facing farmers in devel- oping countries worldwide: Small farms were squeezed out. Midsized farms were most vul- nerable because they could neither achieve the economies of scale available to larger produc- ers nor buffer losses with off-farm employ- ment like the smallest farms could. Amazingly, despite blows to crop yields and Dried out. As of February 2014, most of California is in Extreme to Exceptional Drought (see red and livestock numbers, Australia’s rate of growth in dark red areas on map). agricultural production has quickly returned to predrought trends. The impacts of this major drought on irrigation communities were buffered by some critical water reforms. These included: (i) well-developed water markets that allowed water trade to farmers in the greatest need; (ii) modernization of irrigation infrastructure that increased the effi ciency of water delivery; and (iii) establishment of clear water entitlements for the environment that protected critical refuge habitats and populations as water availability declined. The use of water markets was particularly critical. More than 40% of annual water alloca- tions were traded at the height of the drought in 2007. For example, increased water prices allowed dairy farmers to sell their allocation and purchase fodder with the proceeds rather than irrigate pasture. Fruit growers and other producers who needed to maintain irrigation through- out the drought could purchase the dairy farmers’ water to keep their operations viable. In urban areas, strategies to increase supply and decrease demand were brought to bear. Expensive desalination and water recycling plants were built. Australians were more comfort- able with the desalinated water (3, 4), despite the recycled water’s safety and the desalination plants’ greater cost and large carbon and environmental footprints (4). Between 2002 and 2009, per capita municipal water use in southeast Australia decreased by nearly 50% (5). Water use restrictions ranged from outright bans of conspicuously con- CREDIT: DATA FROM THE GLOBAL INTEGRATED DROUGHT MONITORING AND PREDICTION SYSTEM (GIDMAPS) (2) Australia’s Drought: Lessons for California