Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Research for Resilience: Addressing California’s Climate, Conservation & Housing Crises
The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), where human development mixes with or abuts undeveloped natural areas, is now the fastest growing land use type in the U.S. This is of major concern since WUI housing is the most at risk of wildfire and other hazards, especially in the context of climate change. This is especially an issue in California, which has led the nation in WUI growth and wildfire for 30 years, with the former now the leading cause of the latter. Yet there is no systematic research on what drives WUI growth, nor its associated demographics and socio-environmental dynamics. In this mixed method, collaborative, community engaged research project we hypothesize that one crucial driver is California’s affordable housing crisis, which is also the most extreme in the nation, and has been intensifying over the same 30 year time period. We explore how displacement of Californians from unaffordable cities, along with the desirability of WUI areas, is entangled with WUI growth, and with this growing hazardousness and inequality of the broader region. We focus our analysis on California’s central coast—itself the least affordable metro area in the state, as well as a WUI region impacted by increasingly devastating climate disasters—from the CZU Fire in 2020 to the Pajaro Flood of 2023. Such research is vital to envision ways to meaningfully address climate disaster, from supporting equitable land stewardship and mitigation practices in the WUI, to expanding affordable housing in urban areas. With its location at the socio-environmental interface, we hope the project can serve as an interface for new ways of thinking about our intertwined climate, conservation and housing futures in California and beyond.
The following conceptual diagram helps explain the relational, regional framework we’re working with.
Affiliated Research
Our team is led by faculty and students in the social and natural sciences working alongside community and county partners in affordable housing, labor, Indigenous land stewardship, prescribed burning, conservation, and emergency management. Over the course of our two year project (2023-2025), we hosted regional gatherings to share and get feedback on our findings from a range of stakeholders, and have developed a WUI Equity Atlas, comprising a number of interactive online tools. Our collective goal is to inform and inspire new approaches to regional resiliency planning at the nexus of climate, land, and housing justice.
WUI Ethnography
Through surveys and interviews with WUI residents, observation of community dialogues, and archival research, we will explore the affordability-desirability nexus motivating people to move to the WUI, uncover emerging obstacles to prescribed burning in WUI areas, and build deeper understanding of the history of fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Research projects in this area of study include:
- Housing + Habitat Resource Fairs and Surveys
- Living with fire: ethnography
- Archival history of the Santa Cruz Mountains
WUI Fire Ecology
We will carry out pre- and post-fire ecological surveys for prescribed burns, with the specific aim of determining where and when this practice can be most effective for native plant ecology and habitat restoration in the WUI. We will also conduct a fire return interval departure analysis to show the difference in fire frequency in WUI areas before and after development.
Research projects in this area of study include:
- Prescribed burn plant surveys
- Fire return interval departure analysis
WUI Spatial Analysis
We’re conducting statistical and GIS analysis of the 3D’s of WUI growth: the drivers that encourage migration to the WUI, demographics of who’s living in the WUI, and resulting dynamics, like growing commute sheds and vulnerability to climate-related hazards. We’ll also identify distinct socio-environmental typologies for the WUI.
Research projects in this area of study include:
- 3 D’s analysis
- Socio-environmental typologies analysis
Press and Publications
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An overlooked side-effect of the housing crisis may be putting Californians at increased risk from climate disasters
The UC Santa Cruz campus newscenter shared that a lack of affordable housing in urban areas of California may be driving increased development in and near wildlands, leading to more severe climate change impacts.
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Five UC Santa Cruz projects win California Climate Action Grant funding
The UC Santa Cruz campus newscenter shared that a roughly $1.6 million grant project will conduct a first-of-its kind study of how California’s housing crisis affects the growth of the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), where the fringes of development reach into natural areas.
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University of California, state partner to award climate action grants
The Santa Cruz Sentinel covered the University of California’s Climate Action Grant awards to UC Santa Cruz faculty and quoted Miriam Greenberg, principal investigator for the Wildland Urban Interface Research for Resilience project.
People
Research affiliates
Hillary L Angelo
- Title
- Associate Professor of Sociology
- Department
- Sociology Department
Jeffrey T Bury
- Title
- Department Chair and Professor
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
Christopher Benner
- Title
- Professor of Sociology
- Department
- Sociology Department
Emily Gelina Chambers
- Title
- Graduate Student
- Department
- Anthropology Department
Julian Crown
- Title
- Jr. Specialist
- Department
- Sociology Department
Lucy Ferneyhough
- Title
- Associate Director, Native Plant Program Project Manager
- Department
- Arboretum
Rick Flores
- Title
- Executive Director
- Department
- Arboretum
Kyle Rod Galindez
- Title
- Graduate Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Miriam Greenberg
- Title
- Professor of Sociology
- Department
- Sociology Department
Alexander Subhash Jones
- Title
- UCSC Campus Natural Reserve Manager
- Department
- Natural Reserve System
Elena Losada
- Title
- PhD Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Andrew S Mathews
- Title
- Professor
- Department
- Anthropology Department
Barry Nickel
- Title
- Director, Center For Integrated Spatial Research
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
Juan Pedroza
- Title
- Associate Professor of Sociology and Graduate Education Chair
- Department
- Sociology Department
Colleen Kimberly Stone
- Title
- Sociology Department Assistant
- Department
- Sociology Department
Daniel Jackson Story
- Title
- Digital Scholarship Librarian
- Department
- Library, University
Alma Esperanza Villa Loma
- Title
- Graduate Student
- Department
- Sociology Department
Christopher C Wilmers
- Title
- Professor
- Department
- Environmental Studies Department
- Isaí Ambrosío, Davenport Resource Service Center Program Director, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County
- Tatiana Brennan, County of Santa Cruz, Office of Response, Recovery, & Resilience (OR3) Senior Administrative Analyst
- Ray Cancino, Community Bridges, Chief Executive Officer
- Jared Childress, Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association (CCPBA) Program Manager
- Aaron Culich, Deputy Director, D-Lab; Cyberinfrastructure Architect and Consulting Lead, UC Berkeley
- Christy Fischer, Trust for Public Land (TPL) Senior Project Manager
- Patricia Frontiera, Geospatial Data Analyst
- Cesar Lara, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council (MBCLC) Executive Director
- Dustin Mulvaney, SJSU Environmental Studies Professor
- Lizette Ponce, Davenport Resource Service Center Program Coordinator, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County
- Devii Rao, UC Cooperative Extension Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor serving San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Cruz Counties; Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association (CCPBA)
- Alex Ramiller, Assistant Professor in Geography & Planning, University of Toronto
- Dave Reid, Santa Cruz County Office of Response, Recovery, & Resilience (SCC OR3) Director
- Brenda Rubio, Trust for Public Land (TPL) Project Associate
- Alexandra D. Syphard, Conservation Biology Institute, Senior Research Ecologist
- David Vásquez Ospina, Research Assistant, San Jose State University
- Tonje Wold-Switzer, Executive Director, Long Term Recovery Group of Santa Cruz County
- Barb Satink Wolfson, UC Cooperative Extension Fire Advisor for Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties
University of California Undergraduate Interns & Alumni Jr. Specialists
- Nessa Cascante, Sociology
- Julian Crown, Legal Studies, Sociology
- Savannah Hayes, Psychology, Sociology
- Tyler Johnston, Legal Studies, Sociology
- Karla Martinez, Latin American and Latino Studies, Sociology
- Regan Miller, Cognitive Science, Computer Science Minor
- Miguel Narez Vazquez, Latin American and Latino Studies, Sociology
- Juan Ponce, Economics, Sociology
- Ally Rosenmerkel, Sociology, Legal Studies minor
University of California affiliated programs
- The Amah Mutsun Relearning Program (AMRP) at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden is a collaborative effort between the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (AMTB) and the Garden to assist the Tribe in their efforts of cultural revitalization, recuperation and relearning of dormant cultural knowledge, and environmental justice. This unique process of relearning combines science, research of Smithsonian ethnographer John P. Harrington’s interviews with Mutsun elder and tribal matriarch Ascension Solorzano, and other Mutsun members, in the late 1920s, oral histories of Amah Mutsun tribal members, and knowledge and information from surrounding California Indian tribes with similar cultures.
- The Native Plant Program at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden is dedicated to the conservation of California’s flora, through the development and stewardship of the gardens and surrounding lands, student engagement via the interactive ecology internship and applied botanical conservation projects including seed banking, vegetation sampling and native plant horticulture.
- The UCSC Campus Natural Reserve (CNR) focuses on engaging students in direct observation and study of the natural world and bridging concepts learned in the class with hands-on experiences. Each year, thousands of students visit the CNR and surrounding natural lands as part of their coursework, and over 100 deepen their educational experiences through experiential internships. CNR staff also engage in large-scale planning and land management efforts, including the use of prescribed fire. The CNR is planning two small coastal prairie burns that Cal Fire will conduct in fall 2024 and that will be included in WRR research.
- The Center for Integrated Spatial Research (CISR), formerly the GIS/ISC Laboratory, is the central facility for spatially-focused research and training at the University of California, Santa Cruz. CISR is focused on integrating state-of-of-the-art spatial technology and methods (geographic information systems, global positioning systems, remote sensing, spatial modeling/statistics) with pressing interdisciplinary research and fostering cross-domain cooperation in the application of these tools. In order to advance this purpose, CISR is dedicated to promoting a diversity of research by increasing campus and community literacy in spatial methods and engaging in innovations in spatial science.
- University of California’s Cooperative Extension is part of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Offices are problem-solving centers—the bridge between local issues and the power of UC research. Our county-based staff is part of the community – we live and work in the areas we serve. We are stewards, problem-solvers, catalysts, collaborators, and educators. Devii Rao’s Livestock and Natural Resources program primarily focuses on prescribed fire and targeted grazing as land management tools.
Community affiliated programs
- Center for Political Ecology is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Santa Cruz, California that supports political ecology scholarship, education, advocacy, and transformative change by serving as the fiscal sponsor for environmental action, agroecology, and sustainability groups in the Monterey and San Francisco Bay area.
- Central Coast Prescribed Burn Association (CCPBA) is an access point and catalyst for “good fire” in the tri-county region. CCPBA is a network of ranchers, researchers, tribes, foresters, firefighters, park rangers, homeowners, land trusts, wineries, agencies and the “fire curious.”
- Community Bridges envisions a thriving community where every person has the opportunity to unleash their full potential. Together, our family of programs deliver essential services, provides equitable access to resources, and advocates for health and dignity across every stage of life throughout Santa Cruz County.
- Conservation Biology Institute (CBI) is a non-partisan, science-based nonprofit working to support the conservation of biological diversity towards a healthier, more ecologically sustainable planet.
- Monterey Bay Central Labor Council (MBCLC) is the local body of the AFL-CIO dedicated to promoting equity and fairness in the workplace. As a membership organization, MBCLC serves as a coalition of the Labor Community in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, striving to create a more inclusive and just society for working families.
- Santa Cruz County Office of Response, Recovery, & Resilience (SCC OR3) improves our community’s emergency response, elevates our disaster awareness, and prepares for increases in extreme weather due to climate change, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors created the Office of Response, Recovery & Resilience (OR3) in December 2020. The OR3 goes beyond traditional emergency operations to create a full-service division to help our community prepare for disasters, respond during emergencies, and assist with recovery.
- Long Term Recovery Group (LTRG)of Santa Cruz County is a collaboration of nonprofit, faith-based, local, state and national organizations that work together to assist people as they recover from disaster.
- Trust for Public Land (TPL) creates parks and protects public land where they’re needed most so that everyone will have access to the benefits and joys of the outdoors for generations to come.
Project sponsors and funders
- UC Santa Cruz Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies (CUES)
- UC Santa Cruz Department of Environmental Studies
- UC Santa Cruz Department of Sociology
- UC Santa Cruz Division of Social Sciences
- UC Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation
- Center for Coastal Climate Research: Designing Just and Fire Resilient Landscapes in California. 2023 – 2025.
- State of California Strategic Growth Council Climate Action Community Engaged S/Hero Award Supplements: Wildlands Urban Interface (WUI) Research for Resilience: Addressing California’s Climate, Conservation & Housing Crises. August 2023 – July 2025.
- University of California Climate Action Research Grant: Wildlands Urban Interface (WUI) Research for Resilience: Addressing California’s Climate, Conservation & Housing Crises. August 2023 – July 2025.
- Wildlife Conservation Network – California Wildlife Program: Urban Displacement or Exurban Desirability? Understanding the Drivers of Housing Expansion in the Wildlands Urban Interface. June 2023 – June 2025.