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Finding reliable, eco-friendly power sources is crucial as our world grapples with increasing energy needs and the urgent call to combat climate change. Solar energy offers one solution, with scientists devising ever more efficient materials for capturing sunlight.

Perovskite solar cells have emerged as a promising alternative to conventional, silicon solar cells, boasting a number of advantages. But processing the material has been a complicated affair. Now, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have developed a method to make high-quality perovskite films at room temperature. 

Beauty is all around us at UC Santa Barbara, but for Cameron Hannah-Bick a highlight is the campus vegetation.That became very clear on the midday “Very Important Tree Tour" she led in April, fittingly scheduled between Earth and Arbor Days.

Just as water moves through a river, rivers themselves move across the landscape. They carve valleys and canyons, create floodplains and deltas, and transport sediment from the uplands to the ocean.

A new paper out of UC Santa Barbara presents an account of what drives the migration rates of meandering rivers. The two authors compiled a global dataset of these waterways, analyzing how vegetation and sediment load effect channel movement. “We find a global-scale trend between the amount of sediment that rivers carry and how quickly they’re migrating, across all variables,” said lead author Evan Greenberg, a doctoral student in the Department of Geography.

The endangered North Atlantic right whale is about to get some much-needed help from UC Santa Barbara scientists, in the form of a vessel tracking tool that reveals in near real-time the speeds at which cargo ships move up and down the North American East Coast. A component of Whale Safe, a program developed by the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory (BOSL) at UCSB, the publicly available vessel analytics tool allows resource managers, conservationists, shipping companies, retailers and the public in general to see whose cargo ships are speeding through waters through which these and other whales may be traveling.

UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Geography celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. The department got its start in 1963 as a program in the College of Letters and Science. The major was launched in February 1966, and its first degree was granted that June. But the discipline was languishing by 1973, when Bruce Rickborn became associate dean of letters and science. Rickborn conducted a survey of geography departments around the country, which painted a dim prognosis. 

It’s a simple device but it can do so much: A photo cradle, installed on the steps leading to and from East Campus Beach. The monitoring device invites citizen scientists to document the beach’s many faces. It’s the first installation in Santa Barbara County of theCoastSnap project, a global effort to keep watch on the coasts as they change over time. Developed by researchers in Australia primarily to assess beach width, the project has found its way across the globe and will benefit the local community in several ways.

A brief stroll along the Santa Barbara seashore leaves no doubt that our beaches are in peril. Stronger storms, bluff erosion and sea-level rise all threaten our coast. Without intervention, two thirds of Southern California’s beaches will be inundated by 2100, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But rather than merely reacting to what the ocean throws at us, the state of California has commissioned a strategic plan to prepare for the future.

Groundwater is a critical resource around the globe, especially in dry regions, but it’s importance in sustaining ecosystems remains largely unstudied. There are many challenges in managing this precious resource for multiple purposes, including water supply and healthy ecosystems. New research has used satellite imagery and groundwater monitoring data to investigate the links between groundwater and the ecosystems they support throughout the state of California.

A first-of-its-kind recycling program at UC Santa Barbara has a plan for your old shoes — instead of throwing them out, give them new life.

Legislators love bundling things together. It lets them accomplish more with less hassle and attempt to make legislation more appealing to a broader group. But a new study in the journal Climatic Change suggests that this can sometimes backfire. The authors found that pairing climate policies with other policies does not necessarily increase their popular appeal, and can actually reduce public support.

“The bundling strategy has the potential to address many policy issues that appeal to different constituencies,” said lead author Renae Marshall, a doctoral candidate at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. “Our study suggests that there are also…