Despite popular belief, recent rains may not be enough to pull California out of aquatic state of emergency

In January 2014, Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought state of emergency in California due to record-breaking dry conditions that began in 2011 and have affected areas from San Diego to Modoc Counties. Despite stereotypes of Californians’ hatred for all things rain, winter storms over the past month have blessed the state with hopeful feelings of a farewell to the drought. While the arid and dusty vegetation needs it, this increase in precipitation may not sufficiently pull California out of its ecological state of emergency just yet.

“The water system in California is very articulated and the main source of water is the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada,” said Daniele Zaccaria, the assistant cooperative extension specialist at the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources. “Snow melt fills the reservoir in the bottom of the mountains, and the water moves into different areas of the state based on needs. Not all of the state is connected to this supply grid because some coastal areas rely on groundwater.”

The drought conditions of the past five years have been so demanding that the state has had to rely more on its groundwater supply, which has seen drastic depletion. Groundwater is located in an aquifer underneath the earth’s surface and must be extracted using a well or drill.

“The drought impacted much of California’s groundwater because there was so much overdraft, especially in the San Joaquin Valley in central California,” Zaccaria said. “The groundwater there will be recharged very slowly over the years and will take many years to get the water to the level it was before the drought.”

Another main source of California’s water supply is its surface water, found on the earth’s surface in creeks, lakes or streams. According to Zaccaria, surface water supply is much more reliable than groundwater because if farmers use surface water, they do not have to spend energy and money to pump water from aquifers. This would create positive consequences down the line because farmers could theoretically cease drilling into the earth, which is expensive and harmful to the environment. Zaccaria said that recent increases in precipitation are a promising light at the end of the drought tunnel.

“From what I have seen, the snowpack in California is above the average quantity for the date,” Zaccaria said. “This January, there has been a long-term average precipitation index of snow and rain in Northern California above last year’s amount as well as the long term average from 60 years. The situation is the same in central California, where the amount of precipitation we are seeing is 225 percent above the long-term average.”

In terms of drought relief, Zaccaria said that conditions are much better than they have been in previous years. However, a lot of this precipitation is coming down as rainfall instead of snow because of global temperatures rising. This is unfortunate because the majority of this rain will run off the surface of the earth into the ocean, causing landslides and nutrient depletion.

            “A really wet winter is great, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the drought is over,” said Elise Gornish, a cooperative extension specialist in Restoration Plant Sciences at UC Davis. “Many of our water sources are being replenished but unfortunately since we’ve had drought for so long, vegetation has died in many areas and the rain is actually enhancing erosion.”

Gornish believes the climate is changing in a way that will increase and intensify instances of drought. In addition, the long-term conversion of perennial farmland, like the almond orchards in the Davis area, will change the way the state is now using water. This will become an even greater problem in the future if drought conditions prevail.

“The earth becomes so dry that the topsoil and nutrients wash away, and if there aren’t any plants to anchor the soil, this leads to immense erosion problems,” Gornish said. “If the soil becomes too dry, you lose a lot of the microbial communities that you need to maintain healthy soils which feeds the downward spiral. Long periods of drought can create a change that is so drastic […] to the point where you can’t actually get back to a healthy ecosystem even with a [large surplus of water].”

California’s Mediterranean climate makes it a drought-prone area, so the state is likely to see fluctuations between dry and and wet years. Due to this, Zaccaria explained that it does not make sense to consider the state of the drought an emergency since there have been fluctuations between bad times and good within the last 60 to 100 years. However, the ecosystem is not the only thing that must adapt to the oscillating cycles of drought in the California climate. Humans must adapt and make necessary changes as well.

“Any time you have instances of rain, even after four-year aggravated drought, it lulls people into a false sense of security so that they relapse into their unsustainable behavior of water use,” Gornish said. “We need to start changing the way we think about about water. There are cities in California that need their water brought in every day, which just blows my mind. I think there will be long-term consequences that may not be solvable with our current behavior and policies.”

Zaccaria agreed that residents of California must be conscientious of their water habits and usage no matter what part of the state they live in. He explained that the argument that Northern California, with its agriculture presence, is to blame for the drought is nonsensical. The California water system was created to support agricultural development, which now is so prominent that the state produces the majority of food for internal and external consumption.

Austin Jelinski, a second-year environmental science and management major, is a Southern California native who recently noticed the divide in northern versus southern attitudes regarding the water controversy. Jelinski hypothesizes that Southern Californians may not acknowledge or take seriously the drought simply because they have not been educated on the severity of it.

“In a metropolitan area such as Los Angeles where you get your water fast, it can be easy to take it for granted [because] you’re removed from the issue of water conservation,” Jelinski said. “It is hard to hold people accountable for their actions if they do not know [the] consequences.”

Studying environmental science at UC Davis will allow Jelinski to apply his passion for science to the public sector by solving environmental solutions and making improvements in how humans use natural resources.

“Everyone has that one environmental issue that speaks to them individually as the root of all problems, and for [me] that problem is water,” Jelinski said. “The question is, are we going to be forced to make the change, or are we going to make the change before it hits us? We should be conserving water but also realizing that we need a bridge between science and policy in order to do so.”
Written by: Gillian Allen — features@theaggie.org

The Red Dress Campaign addresses national health issue through design, collaboration

Strolling down 2nd Street in downtown Davis, large storefront windows catch the glances of passersby — not for trinkets or gadgets for sale, but for the stark pop of red dresses.

Upon a closer look, the red dresses do not appear to be average prom gowns. Each one is uniquely different, and some even evoke images and feelings of organs in the body. The way the fabric sits, folds and falls over itself on the mannequins resembles the anatomy of the human heart.

“The red dresses are an educational exhibit,” said Dr. Amparo Villablanca, a UC Davis faculty member and a cardiologist at the UC Davis Medical Center. “[The point is] to raise awareness that heart disease as the leading killer of women in America, so we want all women to know that they are not immune, it is not just a man’s disease.”

Designated as the national symbol of heart disease by the National Institute of Health and the American Heart Association, The Red Dress Collection is the result of a collaboration launched in 2010 between Villablanca and Adele Zhang of the UC Davis Department of Design and is showcased on an annual basis in downtown Davis. Together with Heather Caswell, the owner of The Wardrobe store in downtown Davis and member of the Women’s Heart Health community council, Villablanca and Zhang were able to secure adequate space for the display of the collection downtown. Every year, a new batch of Red Dresses are unveiled at Villablanca’s Women’s Heart Care Forum in Sacramento in order to raise awareness about the issue. Zhang, who is the curator of the UC Davis Design Museum as well as an instructor in fashion textile and design, wove this 2016 collection into part of her teaching materials.

“I learned a lot of things when I started to work on this project,” Zhang said. “This will be the eighth collection, and this is a very educational opportunity for everybody. Students need to learn what heart disease [is] and what the red dress [means].”

The students of Zhang’s advanced fashion design class have the option to design a personal statement or a dress for this campaign. They are required to have a deep understanding of heart disease in order to adequately convey that the Red Dress Collection is not just a creative design project, but also a national health issue and a social campaign.

“My inspiration came from [a] kaleidoscope,” said Rong Ben, a fourth-year design major and designer of one of the dresses in the 2016 Collection, in an email interview. “You never know what image [or] pattern you will see in there until you look closely into the kaleidoscope and turn it around. Same as heart disease, we all need to take the health issue seriously, look through it, care about it. In this way, we can find out the disease earlier and be able to cure it on time. My goal is to inform people that we all need to pay attention to heart disease and health issues. [We need to] discover it early and cure it early.”

Ben’s design is composed of a detachable outer layer and an inner dress. Once detached, the outer layer can be turned around in order for people to see the red mesh fabric underneath. Ben said that the pattern of the mesh is meant to mimic the pattern of arteries for visual experience and aesthetic appreciation of human hearts.

Heart disease in women has only been on the radar in America for roughly the last 25 years, with increasing focus in the last 10 to 15, according to Villablanca. Villablanca leads the Women’s Cardiovascular Medicine Program, which she began in 1994 and was, at the time, the only program in the nation dedicated to women’s heart health. Part of the reason heart disease was such an unknown issue for women was because scientists have mostly studied the male model of the disease.

“We didn’t study women [before 25 years ago] the way we do now and women still don’t participate in clinical research at the rates we want them to,” Villablanca said. “Devices weren’t tested on women, drugs weren’t necessarily looked at for side-effects for both sexes, research was not required to include women. But now, there’s a requirement by the national institute of health, [which has] been extended to animals systems too in order to study [both] males and females. We’re gaining much more knowledge and information.”

The question as to why death rates from heart disease are higher for women than for men is a challenging one. There are various factors that come into play when evaluating the gap between these rates including lack of awareness, anatomic differences, physiologic differences, the fact that women’s blood vessels are smaller and different responses to treatment.

“Lots of people think that it’s all genetics, whereas genetics is a relatively small part,” Villablanca said. “Recent research has shown that even if you have genetic factors and predisposition, if you have a heart-healthy lifestyle you can cut that risk as much as 40 percent.”

The message of the Red Dress Collection is not simply to point out that heart disease is the leading killer of women in the country, but that it’s largely preventable. While 80 to 90 percent of heart disease is thought to be preventable through heart-healthy lifestyles, diet and physical activity, it affects everyone no matter what age.

Since the start  of the national campaign, death rates for both men and women have decreased significantly due to raised awareness and better prevention as well as advances in treatment. February is designated as the National Heart Month, and, for the past few years, UC Davis and the community have participated in the National Wear Red Day, which falls every year on the first Friday in February. Zhang and Villablanca hope that wearing red will become a powerful and recognized symbol no matter what time of the year it is.

“Every February […] people bring this subject up and are passionate about [it], but I wish it could be a year-round atmosphere for everybody,” Zhang said. “I think it takes time for people to pay attention, and not [just] during that specific month. It is a yearlong or lifelong campaign for our heart health, and that is something I wish […] can be achieved.”

On Friday, Feb. 3, the campaign will unveil a new collection of Red Dresses designed by the students in Zhang’s current advanced fashion class. These dresses will raise awareness for heart disease in the local community, and offer students the chance to become ambassadors of heart care.

“I really enjoyed doing this project because it made me feel the close tie between fashion and other concepts in the society,” Ben said. “Many people may think fashion is for beauty, trend and the fancy stuff, but I strongly believe in the magic power of fashion to discover problems and solve them. I feel honored to be able to participate in this red dress project, have the chance to raise people’s awareness on heart disease, and help to solve social issues.”
Written by Marlys Jeane — features@theaggie.org