FRS 001Q Sec. 001 (2 units) CRN 81719 W 2:10 – 4:00 pm 25 Wellman
Water in California and the American West
Instructor: Jeff Loux, Director of the Land Use and Natural Resources Program at University Extension

Description: This course is designed to introduce students to the fundamental concepts and issues surrounding water resources in the arid West. The course will allow students to identify, evaluate and debate some critical water policy questions we face in the next century. We will began with a basic understanding of how humans interact with the hydrologic system and how this challenge is magnified in 21st century California. We will then examine an historic perspective, reading and analyzing Cadillac Desert by the late Marc Reisner. This will enable students to develop a long-term perspective and understand some of the improvements in policy thinking taking place today. We will then move into a series of focused inquiries on particular issues that impact different aspects of the hydrologic cycle facing the American West and California. Brief lecture/slide presentations and occasional guest speakers will be followed by class discussions and deliberations. Students would be responsible for "briefing" the policy issue and facilitating and recording the discussion. In this way, they will not only learn something about the subject matter, but they will learn how to condense and prepare a policy discussion, how to lead a discussion and how to interpret and record the results of a discussion.

Format: We would meet once per week for 2-3 hours and potentially include a field visit to a local water project and/or a seminar at the instructor’s residence. The format would be an open seminar with substantial discussion and debate. Each class would likely include some form of presentation followed by a discussion. Students would be asked to prepare a brief for each major discussion and lead the class in that discussion. The instructor would provide a slide/lecture presentation for each major topic area (with an occasional guest speaker) followed by student discussion of the policy implications of that issue. Readings would be assigned as needed to prepare students for the discussion. Grading: Attendance and participation in each seminar and in-class student exercises (25%); reading and discussing Cadillac Desert, by Reisner, as well as excerpts from a more technical policy text on water, California Water, by Littleworth and Garner (10%); developing a two-page brief of a policy issue and helping to lead the class in a discussion of that issue (20%); and writing a 3-5 page paper on another water policy matter of the students choice in consultation with the instructor (45%).

About the Instructor: Dr. Loux has worked in the public and private sectors on planning, resource management and water policy matters for nearly twenty years. He currently manages a professional education program that teaches over 60 short courses, conferences and focused training sessions per year in the fields of land use planning and law, environmental planning, natural resource management, community development and public finance and real estate. Dr. Loux has taught a course on Water Resources Planning for the past seven years as part of the program, as well as other courses in urban planning and public participation. Dr. Loux received his doctorate from U.C. Berkeley in Environmental Planning in 1987, specializing in water resources policy in California. He has taught planning and resource management at the graduate and undergraduate levels at U.C. Davis, U.C. Berkeley, and U.C. Santa Cruz. Prior to working for the University, Dr. Loux served as the Community Development Director of the City of Davis for six years, Assistant Director of Planning for Santa Cruz County for two years, and as a planning, design and resource management consultant for two major consulting firms for eleven years. Dr. Loux has received professional awards for community plans, greenbelt design, farmland preservation programs, stream restoration programs, and park/open space planning. Several major water-related projects completed by Dr. Loux include the Merced Wild and Scenic River Plan for Yosemite National Park, Napa River Watershed Management Plan, Soquel Creek Integrated Water Resources Plan. Dr. Loux recently developed a conference on the Endangered Species Act and Water Resources and is working on a Watersheds Management Conference. He has been a featured speaker at many regional events in Water Resources and Sustainable Community Development.