Seed Grant Spotlight: Diane Pataki

Assistant Professor of Earth System Science and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

How does urban turf grass affect climate?

Drop by the UCI Arboretum and you may find Diane Pataki in a fenced in patch of turf grass.  Diane is interested in turf grass because it is ubiquitous in urban and suburban environments.  Soccer fields, putting greens, and lawns now account for 2% of the land surface of the United States (an area bigger than the state of Washington) and as it does, its role in the climate system becomes increasingly important.  However, this effect has largely overlooked – but Diane,  and her colleagues are changing that.

Diane, along with Professor Susan Trumbore, was a recipient in 2005 of a Newkirk Center Faculty Seed Grant.  The overall goal of the research is to evaluate how management of urban landscapes may influence the climate system, and ultimately to communicate this information to urban managers and planners.  She set up an experiment at the UCI Arboretum, with the help of the friendly staff, to measure the exchange of gases between the grass and the air.  The study included two plots of grass, one left normal and the other heated by lamps to simulate the effect of expected temperature rises due to climate change.  The first surprising result was that rabbits seemed to like sleeping under the heat lamps in winter – a problem that was solved by fencing the study plots.  The study also yielded some more scientific findings:

1. turf grass may contribute to greenhouse warming rather than mitigate it – turf grass removes carbon but emits nitrous oxide (a potent greenhouse gas) because of the high levels of fertilization
2. less carbon is removed from the atmosphere when the turf grass is growing at higher temperatures. 

Work continues out at the Arboretum with the focus on the impacts of fertilization and land management techniques.  She has obtained additional funding for this from the Kearney Foundation for soil science and one of her graduate students, Neeta Bijoor received a prestigious NSF fellowship for related work.  As research continues and the results become more robust, Diane will communicate her findings to not only urban managers and planners but also to you and me – so we can make informed decisions about how to plant our own backyards.

Past Seed Grant Recipients

2008

Pierre Baldi, Chancellor's Professor, Director, Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics, for his work entitled Biofuels: Scientific, Economic, and Environmental Issues.

Kathleen R. Johnson, Assistant Professor, Earth System Science, for her work entitled Natural Controls on Precipitation Variability in California: Paleoclimatic Evidence in Spleleothems from Sequoia National Park.

2007

Martha Feldman, Johnson Chair for Civic Governance & Public Management, Department of Planning Policy and Design for her work entitled Preventing Lead Poisoning: Science Citizenship at the Intersection of Public Health and the New Science of Public Management.

Novaco Jennifer Skeem, Assistant Professor in Psychology and Social Behavior, and
Ray Novaco, Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior, for their work entitled Using Social Science to Increase Public Safety.

2006

David Frank, Associate Professor of Sociology for his work entitled Environmental Policy Reform in Asia: NGOs and the Nation-State.

Helen Ingram, Professor, Emerita in Planning, Policy and Design, and
Martha Feldman, Johnson Chair for Civic Governance & Public Management in Planning Policy and Design for their work entitled Adoption of Science in Public Policy: Ways of Knowing.

2005

Jon Ericson, Professor in Environmental Health, Science and Policy, for his work entitled Manganese as an Etiological Agent of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. With Alison Clarke-Stewart, Psychology and Social Behavior; Francis Crinella, Pediatrics; and Richard Robertson, Anatomy and Neurobiology.

Sunny Jiang, Associate Professor in Environmental Health, Science and Policy, and
Anthony Long, for their work entitled Application of Microbial Source Tracking Technology for Pollution Source Identification: Connecting Science and Environmental Policy.

Diane Pataki, Assistant Professor in Earth System Science, and
Sue Trumbore, Professor Earth System Science, for their work entitled See Abve Spotlight

Gary Richardson, Assistant Professor in Economics, for his work entitled Climate Change and Economic Progress in England and China, 1200 A.D. to 2000 A.D.

2004

Helen Ingram, Professor in Planning, Policy & Design, for her proposal entitled Science and Adaptive Management in the Calfed Program.

Innovation is difficult in water agencies because taking risks is difficult when dependability and quality of water service will not be tolerated by water users.  This project explains how important change was accomplished with the Environmental Water Account in California water agencies through astute water management that made strategic use of science.  The key features that made the program a success are:

• Previous policies that were similar though much more limited in scope developed a foundation from which to build and established a measure of trust between participants
• The project was cast as experimental and thus avoided opposition any more permanent change would have engendered
• Science played a critical role. Improved understanding of fish behavior highlighted the benefits of real-time water management.
•  The willingness of fish biologists and water project engineers to work together was enhanced by the venue created by the EWA.

Richard Matthew, Associate Professor in Planning, Policy & Design and Director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs, for his proposal entitled Evaluating Threats from Biological Weapons: Implications for Science and Society.

Bonnie Nardi, Associate Professor of Informatics, and
Susan Elliot Sim, Assistant Professor of Informatics, for their proposal entitled Eco-informatics to Support Hard Choices About Climate Change.

When making an important decision, such as buying a car or selecting a college, we often need to consider information from different sources which do not combine easily.  The situation is no different in the field of ecology though the decisions are much grander in scope. Our study looked at how ecologists collaborate, share, and re-use data from each other’s students by trying to merge two sets of information from the FAA and Orange County Vector Control. The task was so laborious and time consuming – a result of poorly functioning software – it constituted a large obstacle to doing research with data from multiple sources. We are now using these findings to pursue other funding to remedy this problem by developing and promoting much more functional information technology for data sharing. This will lead to science incorporating information on a global scale.

Laura Mosqueda, Associate Professor of Family Medicine, and
Aileen Wiglesworth, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine, for their proposal Outcomes of a Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Elder Mistreatment Case Management: Information for Legislators and Policymakers.

Henry Pontell, Professor in Criminology, Law & Society, for his proposal on Understanding of Corporate Financial Regulations and Public Policies That Should Results From Recent Financial Scandals.

Jean-Daniel Saphores, Assistant Professor in Planning, Policy & Design, for his proposal entitled Diesel Substitutes:  Informing Public Policy about their Environmental, Public Health, and Economic Impacts.

2003

Simon Cole, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law & Society for his proposal entitled Reconfiguring Forensic Identification in a New Scientific and Regulatory Framework.

Following a 1993 Supreme Court decision, expert witnesses in federal and many state courts were required to demonstrate the reliability of their evidence. This development posed new challenges for fingerprint examiners and courts, which were accustomed to simply assuming the reliability of fingerprint evidence without having conducted any validation studies. This study examined courts’ and fingerprint practitioners’ responses to these new challenges. It found that courts largely avoided the implications of the lack of validation studies and reverted to their customary reasons for assuming that fingerprint evidence was reliable evidence. Practitioners, similarly, developed arguments that appeared to divert attention from the lack of validation and directed it instead to issues with which they felt more comfortable, such as the uniqueness of human fingerprint patterns and the longstanding use of fingerprint evidence in casework.

Jun Ishii, Assistant Professor of Economics for his proposal entitled An Empirical Study of Regulation-Induced Innovation: Gas Turbine Generators from 1981 to 2001.

The goal of this study was to see if government policy (regulation) had driven technology innovation in the power industry much as economic forces, such as rising oil prices, has been documented to. We examined the evolution of gas turbine electricity generators in the past two decades in regulated and deregulated markets.  We found that “deregulation” caused a shift to large capacity gas turbines for supplying baseload power to growing markets – a clear sign of policy induced innovation. The strong influence of regulation on technology innovation demonstrates the importance of setting well thought out energy policy to meet the growing demands of the future and is particularly relevant as new pollution regulation (for example, carbon emission caps in Europe) are being planned.

Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Assistant Professor of Anthropology for his proposal entitled Lively Capital: Biotechnologies, Ethics and Governance in Global Markets.

Elaine Vaughan, Associate Professor of Psychology & Social Behavior for her proposal entitled Preparing for Biological and Chemical Terrorism in a Diverse Society: Informing Public Health Policies about Differences in Communities' Needs and Responses.

2002

Pierre Baldi, Director of the Institute for Genomics & Bioinformatics for his proposal entitled Impacts of Biotechnology on Society

F. Lynn Carpenter, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, for her proposal entitled Reestablishing Specific Soil Fungi to Degraded Tropical Land: What Impact on Productivity and Restoration?

Susan Greenhalgh, Professor of Anthropology, for her proposal entitled The Social Consequences of Population Science in China

Tammy O. Tengs, Assistant Professor of Urban & Regional Planning, for her proposal entitled Improving Scientific Policymaker’s Understanding of the Nation’s Breast Cancer Research Portfolio

William Thompson, Professor of Criminology, Law & Society for his proposal entitled The Use of Scientific Evidence in Criminal Prosecutions