Nina Suzuki

Nina Suzuki is the Waterway Steward at the University of California Davis (UC Davis) Arboretum and Public Garden. She is responsible for the maintenance and enhancement of the Arboretum Waterway, which is currently undergoing a major transformation. Nina has more than 13 years of experience in outdoor environmental education, with students in high school through college, as well as local community members. She has focused especially on youth development, cultural relevance, inclusion, and building community with private and public entities. The ee360 Fellowship is broadening Nina’s network of environmental educators and community leaders, which will support Nina and her team of students as they transform the UC Davis Arboretum Waterway from a stormwater channel to an ecologically vibrant public space for community-engaged learning and scholarship. Nina holds a B.S. in Landscape Architecture from UC Davis, with a minor in Landscape Restoration.

Nina is creating a community and citizen science program at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden to monitor water and habitat quality in the Arboretum Waterway while developing community members and students as experts on their local urban watershed. The goals are to improve water quality, reduce pollution, increase student and visitor engagement and environmental literacy, and create a system of data collection that will inform future land and water management. The program will involve collecting regular water samples and lab processing; taking water quality readings in the field; asking visitors to record observations; and creating interactive stations that actively improve or monitor water quality, provide information about the waterway and/or ask visitors to make scientific observations.

The UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden spans the campus’s 5300-plus acres and includes the historic Arboretum—a 100-plus acre campus and regional amenity comprised of demonstration gardens and scientific collections, as well as the Putah Creek Riparian Reserve—a rare stream and grassland ecosystem managed for teaching, research, wildlife, and habitat protection.

The Arboretum’s purpose is to inspire human potential to help people and environments thrive. To that end, the campus grounds are stewarded as a resource for engaging and inspiring students to become environmental leaders, for the public to learn about climate change and the importance of regionally appropriate gardening practices, for visitors to explore the academic richness of UC Davis informally, and so much more!

By utilizing unique skills that combine sustainable horticulture knowledge with over 80 years of public engagement experience, the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden team is transforming its campus grounds into an outdoor museum and living laboratory in support of the university’s wide-ranging academic expertise.

About Nina‘s ee360 Community Action Project

Nina’s Community Action Project is to develop a community and citizen science water quality-monitoring program for the Arboretum Waterway. 

UC Davis is renovating this central piece of stormwater infrastructure to improve ecosystem function and water quality in the Arboretum Waterway, and downstream in Putah Creek, which flows into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and eventually to the Pacific Ocean. 

This water quality-monitoring program will engage the community in learning about stormwater, treated recycled wastewater, and riparian habitat; collecting and sharing data that will inform future management and design; and improving the health of the waterway. 
There could be multiple tiers of involvement: interactive museum exhibits for any visitor to record and share observations, as well as trained community volunteers and UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden Learning by Leading™ undergraduate students using water quality monitoring and habitat assessment protocols and developing their own research questions. 

The UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science is helping to catalyze partnerships on and off campus that support this work and Nina is currently exploring additional partner opportunities. Through this project, Nina hopes to invite the whole community to participate in making critical observations, collecting data, and increasing green infrastructure and water quality improvements that benefit the Putah Creek Watershed.