I am a researcher in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. My work focuses on processes affecting water quantity and quality in rivers, estuaries, and coastal groundwater, and often in response to disturbances, such as wildfires, and land use changes.
My projects are motivated by science that has real-world applications, which I hope can be used to bridge the gap between research and policy change.
With climate change leading to increases in the size and frequency of wildfires, UC Santa Cruz researchers warn that such natural disasters can change the chemistry of nearby streams that people and wildlife depend on for drinking water. However, the researchers found that the baseline water-chemistry data needed to detect such changes aren’t always available.
After the CZU Lightning Complex fires tore through the counties of San Mateo and Santa Cruz in 2020, over 86,000 acres of land were left ravaged in its wake. Now, scientists from UC Santa Cruz are looking into the aftermath of the wildfires in nearby watersheds.
Groundwater pumped from subsided islands back into Delta channels can be laden with excess nitrogen transported from island soils, report the authors of a new study.
Tess Joosse reports on the race to rescue and recover a dwindling coho salmon population after a cataclysmic wildfire. Illustrations by Sophie Wood Brinker and Kylie Kathleen Smith.
Email: cmrichar@ucsc.edu
Address: 1156 High St., Santa Cruz, CA 95064
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