Environment/Natural Resources

Fallon Nevada Leukemia Cluster: An Integrative Study

The IURD at UC Berkeley will obtain and derivitize data from several sources including weather and water table from the USGS, environmental sampling data from investigators at University of Arizona, arsenic data, LORAN transmitter wavelength modeling data, population density and demography data, and other sources of environmental and geological data. The IURD will construct a layered database allowing the statistical mining of correlations between leukemia and other cancer cases and such data. In some cases this will involve the prediction of specific exposures in the vicinity to leukemia cases and controls using data reduction and interpolation software. The IURD will use data reduction and clustering techniques to evaluate the co-occurrence of the included variables and leukemia cases, such software has been developed by the group for other projects. The IURD will work closely with Wei Yang of UN Reno to obtain geocoded identities of cancer cases in a fashion allowable by ethics review boards, and the other investigators in the Fallon Nevada leukemia study to obtain other sources of data.

Principal Investigator:
John Radke

Investigator:
Howard Foster
Freyja Knapp

Contact Information:
Tel: 510.643.5995
Fax: 510.643.3412
Email: ratt@gisc.berkeley.edu

Funding Information:
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Start Date: 8/1/07

Agriculture in Metropolitan Regions

Agriculture in Metropolitan Regions (AMR), a program within the Center for Global Metropolitan Studies, AMR explores issues at the interface of rural and urbanizing areas with the aim of understanding the values, economies, and policies impacting these most vulnerable of landscapes.

With a population of 35 million, projected to be 50 million in 2030, California is a dynamic example of the historic and impending impacts of growth on a region's land and people. But the phenomenon is global. Its characteristics and consequences are universal and include: displaced rural residents, non-agricultural uses of productive farmland, increased traffic and pollution, diminished ecological and cultural uniqueness, loss of wildlife, and a fraying of people's connection to the sources of their food and water, and the natural world.

In recent years the New Urbanism, Smart Growth, and Green Building movements have dramatically reshaped how communities are conceived, sited, and constructed. At the same time the Sustainable Agriculture and Local Food movements have made organic foods mainstream and farmers markets a basic town center amenity. With the imprimatur of UC Berkeley and AME, "New Ruralism" is emerging as a key new strategy for bridging Smart Growth and Sustainable Agriculture.

Our goal is to focus attention on

  • the importance of agricultural lands within the regional metropolitan framework
  • environmental and other benefits of ecological agriculture to healthy communities
  • socio-economic issues at the urban edge
  • the interdependence of urban and rural land and communities

In addition to identifying the urgent questions we need to work on, the symposium will provide a forum for presenting successful models for land-use planning and policies that can nourish the economic, environmental, and cultural vitality of cities and metropolitan regions worldwide.

Principal Investigators:
Elizabeth Deakin
Sibella Kraus

Contact Information:
Email: sibellakraus@berkeley.edu
Website: http://metrostudies.berkeley.edu/agmetroedge/program.shtml

Funding Information:
U.C. Berkeley School of Journalism — Knight Program

Start Date: 3/20/07

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