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Research Portal

The Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Research Portal provides a detailed look at UCLA's cutting-edge research from across campus that is focused on transforming Los Angeles into the world’s most sustainable megacity.

With a generous gift from the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker family foundation, the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge has awarded approximately $4 million to dozens of UCLA-led research projects. Spanning the areas of renewable energy and energy efficiency, transportation, water supply and consumption, and ecosystem and public health, these projects were selected for their potential to transform Los Angeles. Much of this research is already informing policy decisions in the L.A. region and beyond.

Los Angeles County contains 215 community water systems that are disconnected and fragmented. These water systems vary greatly in their local water resources including access to groundwater storage, stormwater capture, water re-use, infrastructure and potential for conservation. For instance, some systems contain more water resources than they need to meet their local demand. Other systems have limited resources and depend on a single source of imported water or groundwater aquifer. As a result, households face unequal access to affordable drinking water that is mainly determined by their geographical location. A feasible strategy to integrate these fragmented water systems is needed to address the inequities in pricing and ensure Los Angeles County can achieve 100% local water. 
Award Year
Solar energy is the world's most abundant clean source of energy. The research objective of this project is to develop a tandem device capable of providing both energy generation and storage by combining the functions of a photovoltaic and rechargeable battery. Although both systems individually have been studied in-depth and developed, a tandem device that both generates and stores electricity had yet to be explored. The Sustainable LA Grand Challenge provided a unique opportunity to create an interdisciplinary research and design team to exploit this resource and significantly enhance energy self-sufficiency in Los Angeles and beyond. 
Award Year
Los Angeles County is a biodiversity hotspot that harbors over 4,000 species of plants and animals. The most populous county in the nation, L.A. County offers a unique environment where more than 10 million people coexist with wildlife. The biodiversity of L.A. County provides many benefits to people, including air and water purification, food security and mental/physical well-being. But land development and climate change threaten the county’s species, their habitats, and the region's ecosystem. With 1 million animal and plant species globally facing extinction due to human activity, efforts to better understand the factors that shape biodiversity in Los Angeles could help shape global conservation efforts. 
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Nearly 60% of Los Angeles County’s water demand is fulfilled by imported water from hundreds of miles away. Securing a sustainable local water supply via recycled wastewater can help save the enormous amounts of energy required to transport water and make the region more resilient to climatic change. Over the years, the use of bioreactors (a type of membrane filtration) combined with wastewater treatment has significantly contributed to ensuring local water supplies.   However, it has also raised concern for biofouling, which is a phenomenon that occurs when microorganisms in the wastewater adhere to the surface of the membranes and restrict water flow. Membrane surfaces must be cleaned periodically by discontinuing the bioreactor operation, which limits the economic advantages of using this approach. Thus, for the use of bioreactors in wastewater treatment to become widely adopted as a fully sustainable and economical technology across Los Angeles County – the membrane biofouling issue must first be resolved. 
Award Year
Southern California experienced a significant drought from 2012 to 2016, which was exacerbated by warming due to climate change. Defined by unprecedented high temperatures and low annual precipitation, it was the driest four-year span in the last 1,200 years.  As a result, overall vegetation health and cover has most likely been affected (e.g. decline in greenness, high vegetation mortality in chaparral-dominated communities). Changes in vegetation health and cover create favorable conditions for wildfires and landslides. These changes threaten both the stability of the natural environment and the structures that depend on it, such as built electricity generation plants, power lines and pipelines. Because these types of infrastructure are often located on or run through wildland areas, changes in vegetation, wildfires and landslides can impact the region’s energy supplies. To better understand these impacts and assess Los Angeles County’s energy supply vulnerabilities, researchers analyzed the impacts of the 2012-2016 drought on vegetation health and cover using satellite and geospatial environmental data. 
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Wastes and biomass residues from agricultural, dairy, forestry and household activities are sustainable energy resources that are widely available and replenishable. They can be used to derive alternative energy products like electricity, heat and bio-jet fuel. However, the transport and storage of waste are costly and processing it requires substantial energy. In order to consider wastes and biomass residues as potential alternative energy sources, there needs to be a holistic assessment of their potential energy production, net energy gain, and greenhouse gas emission reductions. This project aims to undertake this assessment in the contiguous United States.
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With climate change, extreme weather events like droughts and heatwaves have become much more frequent in California. Coastal sage scrub (CSS) is a unique ecosystem native to California, which consists of drought-deciduous plants and evergreen shrubs. CSS is a major shrubland type in the Los Angeles region that plays a central role in the conservation of native biodiversity and as recreational areas. These shrubland ecosystems are relatively well adapted to seasonal drought to survive the hot summer months. However, how they will cope with and respond to intensifying water stress, associated with rising temperatures, under climate change is less clear.
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Vehicle emissions and the resulting air pollution are notable public health concerns in the Los Angeles region. The vast majority of trips in the County are by means other than public transit. One barrier to transit ridership is the distance to a rail or bus system. Factors like sidewalk availability, safety and exposure to heat make traveling to transit stops more difficult, and the effects are more pronounced amongst the elderly and those with disabilities. Ride-hailing services or “Transportation Network Companies (TNC)” like Uber and Lyft can improve access to transit by connecting users to rail or bus stations that are beyond walking distance. Realizing the potential of TNCs, this study proposed combining them with zero-emission vehicles to ultimately reduce emissions, encourage public transit use, and support L.A. County’s ongoing initiatives to reach 100% renewable energy and reduce air pollution.
Award Year
A power grid is a network for delivering electricity to consumers. Because utility structure is widely understudied, a critical component to “greening” the power grid is fully understanding the current system. In the Los Angeles region, two separate entities provide power to residents and are subject to very different regulatory structures:   Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the country’s largest municipally owned utility that serves the City of Los Angeles.   Southern California Edison (SCE) is an investor-owned utility that serves all of Los Angeles County outside the City of Los Angeles borders.   Having dual models of electricity service and regulation provides researchers with a unique opportunity to evaluate and compare the two. Researchers examined whether these two models under different forms of governance and ownership have necessary structures in place in order to achieve sustainability in the energy sector.
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Physical activity (PA) improves the quality of life and health and is closely linked to the built environment. To promote sustainable and active living in communities, many cities are implementing bike sharing programs. These programs provide co-benefits of reduced emissions by decreasing vehicle miles traveled (VMT). However, no study has been conducted locally to quantify and assess the impacts on PA patterns and health. PASTA-LA, a sister-study of the European Union PASTA project, will be the first and only study outside of Europe to explore the health-related outcomes of bike share in Los Angeles, California. 
Award Year
California’s climate is one of extremes, susceptible to rapid shifts between drought and flood. For example, the state experienced a record multi-year dryness between 2012–2016 followed by extreme wetness during the 2016–2017 winter. With global climate change, warming is likely to cause even greater precipitation variability in the future. But patterns of change by region and over time in precipitation extremes in California remain uncertain.  
Award Year
Los Angeles County has high rates of food insecurity, federal food assistance and chronic diet-related diseases, in part due to lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables and limited green space and safe outdoor spaces in many communities. Urban agriculture has the potential to improve public health through increased food access and consumption, thus may help address urban food insecurity. However, there is very limited data and documentation of urban agriculture activities (e.g. size, production, crop types) in the County. Recognizing this data gap, this project expanded the current documentation efforts and assessed the production potential focusing on how urban agriculture affects public health by integrating health impact assessment (HIA) methodology, geospatial analysis and policy review. 
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Transportation emissions are a primary cause of Los Angeles’ notoriously poor air quality. Policymakers and “smart growth” advocates assert that intensifying land use around the public transit rail system will not only help accomplish transportation and environmental goals, but also housing and economic development goals. However, recent studies reveal that rail development is linked to gentrification and displacement of public transit’s core ridership. This project combined literature and policy review, spatial analysis and interviews to investigate underlying causes and develop future policy recommendations that prioritize social equity and minimize displacement. 
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Zoning is the primary legislative tool through which land use is locally governed in the United States. In Los Angeles, zoning and land use exert a fundamental influence on the production, consumption and delivery of energy. While recent state and local policy has sought to integrate land use and sustainability practices, these efforts do not acknowledge the full extent of land use policy’s influence on urban energy systems. Thus, this project comprehensively mapped a history of L.A. County zoning and building code ordinances over the past 150 years and evaluated their impact on L.A.’s urban energy systems and public health.  
Award Year
Assembly Bill 551 (AB 551), California’s Urban Agricultural Incentive Zones (UAIZ) Act, provides tax incentives to landowners to transform vacant lots into small-scale agricultural plots. Major benefits of implementing AB 551 include:  Reduced number of food deserts across the City of Los Angeles.  Reduced transportation pollution from shipping produce.  Creation of new green spaces in previously vacant lots.  Expansion of local farming coupled with sustainable agriculture technologies.  Thus, the implementation of AB 551 is crucial to ensure the City of L.A. meets its 2025 Sustainable City pLAn outcome to increase urban agriculture sites by 25%. The objective of this project is to research the adoption and implementation methods of other California cities and counties that have already adopted AB 551 to relay this information to LAFPC and to share the best implementation strategies for the City of L.A.
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