The Environmental Fluid Mechanics group at UC Berkeley uses numerical, observational, and theoretical tools to study the movement of water and air in the natural environment. Research interests include the coastal ocean and estuaries, the atmospheric boundary layer, sediment transport, land-atmosphere interactions, numerical methods, turbulence, effects of density stratification, contaminant transport, groundwater flow, biological fluid mechanics, and the intersections of these and other topics. Within each of these research areas, fundamental processes of fluid flows are investigated. Our current research projects are described here.

Berkeley in 1875. North Hall (building on right) was used for engineering.

History of Hydraulics and Environmental Fluid Mechanics at Berkeley

Hydraulics has been studied at Berkeley since the founding of the University of California in 1868. Witness the first published bulletin of the College of Mechanics (1883): Experiments with a Partial Turbine or Tangential Wheel, and Experiments with Hurdy Gurdy Wheels. Prepared by students working under Professor Frederick Hesse, the paper addresses the hydraulics and fluid mechanics of ‘the water wheels which have attracted special interest in the mining regions of this coast’ and are ‘designed for high heads and small supplies of water’. Early Berkeley graduates worked, for example, at mining operations, or on the (in)famous California water projects.

From its initial focus on teaching, the hydraulics program (and engineering in general) at Berkeley gradually evolved towards an emphasis on research, and the program shifted and broadened its focus to topics which today encompass the field of environmental fluid mechanics. In particular, Murrough P. O’Brien spear-headed research beginning in the 1930’s on such topics as beach erosion, surface waves, sediment transport, hydraulic modeling, and open-channel flow. During this time, research facilities and scope greatly increased, for example with the conversion of an abandoned pool on College Ave. into a wave pool, and the creation of a scale model of the Columbia River estuary. Such projects spawned studies in related fields such as Coastal Engineering and Naval Architecture. Professors such as H.A. Einstein, R. Wiegel, R.B. Krone, H. Fischer, J. Imberger, H. Shen, and others continued work at the Hydraulic Engineering Laboratory into the 1950’s,1960’s, 1970's and beyond. More recently, elements of the naval architecture and water resources groups were consolidated into the environmental engineering group in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department to create closer coupling between the chemical, physical, and biological aspects of fluid flows. The current EFM group at Berkeley has a strong focus on fundamental properties of flow and transport in the environment in surface water and atmospheric flows.

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Hydraulics Laboratory in 1912