Alexander J. Horne

Professor Horne's research emphasizes quantification of environmental and ecological problems to define engineered solutions. Some of the problems tackled have been the in situ measurement of toxic and biostimulatory effects of highly-treated wastewaters in estuaries, rivers, wetlands, lakes, reservoirs, and oceans. Effects of heavy metals, oil spills, chlorinated wastewaters, and selenium have been studied recently. Emphasis has been on indigenous organism communities rather than individual organisms from laboratory cultures. The effects of water volume, timing of water withdrawals, and water quality on reservoir problems including taste and odor and eutrophication are of current interest. Special attention has been given to teaching students high precision but "low tech" methodology which allows many more samples to be analyzed. In turn this permits statistically significant detection of small environmental effects. Current work on water quality in reservoirs and the design of new reservoirs emphasizes problems in semi-arid regions such as Southern and Central California.