From Labs to Law Books

Discoveries by university researchers don’t die after they are described in doctoral theses and published in science journals. They live on in public service, by informing the actions of policymakers and legislators. The laws that govern automobile owners, electricity providers, tomato processors, oil refineries, construction-site managers and even dry cleaners rely on scientific facts supplied by air-quality experts at UC Davis and elsewhere.

UC Davis’ greatest contributions to clean-air policy have come in the agriculture and transportation sectors. In the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, scientists have worked with farmers to modify farming operations to put less particulate matter into the air—professor Randal Southard’s dust-tracking “Pig Pen” invention (named after the dirty youngster in the Peanuts comic strip), for example, has shown the way to cleaner tractor designs. Professors Ken Giles and Bryan Jenkins have devised equipment and measuring techniques to help almond and raisin growers reduce dust, wood smoke and pesticide emissions. Agricultural Air Quality Center Director Frank Mitloehner is trying to solve a problem nearly as old as agriculture itself: We need cows for milk and cheese, but what do we do with all the dust and gas emissions from manure, feed and animals?

In transportation, the university’s 15-year-old Institute of Transportation Studies is an international leader in projecting consumers’ driving preferences and advising industry and government leaders how to satisfy those wishes but get cleaner air, too. Institute director Daniel Sperling and ITS faculty members regularly advise the U.S. Congress and California Legislature, federal and state environmental protection agencies, the California Air Resources Board, major automakers and foreign governments.

Ten years of air studies by physics professor Tom Cahill and the American Lung Association have led to new state requirements for minimum breathing spaces between children’s schools and busy city streets.

Deb Niemeier, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is director of the eight-year-old UC Davis–Caltrans Air Quality Project, a public agency partnership aimed at developing better ways to reduce the impacts of transportation on air quality. The team regularly advises the state Legislature and partners with federal, state and local agencies to address transportation-air quality impacts and policy issues. Niemeier is an expert at developing computer models to estimate vehicle emissions, which requires understanding how people travel and how land use and transportation interact. And as director of the university’s John Muir Institute of the Environment, Niemeier helps the campus identify emerging environmental concerns and develop responsive research programs with industry and government agencies.

UC Davis’ groundbreaking findings on the harmful effects of secondhand cigarette smoke have helped shape smoking laws around the world. Now the new five-year, $8 million San Joaquin Valley Aerosol Health Effects Center is sure to yield many more important discoveries about the impact of air pollution on human health—discoveries that should help communities plan for the future and help agencies fine-tune emissions laws.

Finally, UC Davis studies of natural “background” emissions from oceans and forests should help the global community better predict and prepare for climate change.

Related stories:

A Toll on Human Health
UC Davis researchers have made major contributions to understanding how airborne environmental toxins (such as smoke, dust and vehicle emissions) affect human health, particularly children’s health. One of their most troubling findings: Contrary to common belief, very young children’s lungs are more susceptible than adults’ to injury by environmental toxins, and those injuries cause significant deformities in essential airways that may be permanent. [more]

Climate-Altering Effects
UC Davis scientists are looking for players in global climate change in unusual places: seashores, dead plankton and pine trees. [more]

A Winning Approach
How long has UC Davis been exploring the effects of air pollution on human health? Here’s one measure: The National Institutes of Health recently renewed a grant for ozone research at UC Davis for the 32nd year. The project’s lead scientist, professor Charlie Plopper, jokes, “It has to be one of the few grants left with a three-digit ID number.” New grants now get numbers in the low five digits. [more]

Air Profiles: The researchers, the questions their asking and the answers they're finding. [more]

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Links to more information:

Air Quality Research Center

John Muir Institute of the Environment

Institute of Transportation Studies

UC Davis–Caltrans Air Quality Project

Atmospheric Aerosols & Health program for graduate students

Stories and photos by Sylvia Wright, who writes about the environmental sciences for UC Davis.