Graduate sustainability programs are tasked with educating and preparing the next generation of leaders to address the causes and effects of global climate change. As the urgency of addressing sustainability challenges like climate change has grown, including through higher education sustainability education, so has the attention on the competencies students ought to master to become sustainability leaders. Yet little is known about which sustainability leadership competencies are critical to bring about change or how curricula are addressing them. We used course descriptions from the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, to identify the sustainability leadership competencies targeted across its historically successful graduate curriculum, along with faculty members’ associated cognitive processing expectations following Bloom’s Taxonomy. The programs’ courses varied in the extent to which they addressed ten leadership competencies but were consistent in terms of associated cognitive processing expectations. We recommend that other sustainability education programs similarly examine their curricula and ensure that students regardless of their specializations have the opportunity to graduate with the knowledge, skills, and mindsets to affect change.

The sustainability of agriculture in the American West depends on the capacity of farmers to adapt to water resource constraints. Most US studies of agricultural adaptations measure farmers’ willingness to adopt various water use reduction strategies, meaning we have little empirical data on which strategies farmers implement and how these decisions impact their farms. We use survey data from 265 farmers in southeastern Idaho who, beginning in 2016, were required to cut annual groundwater withdrawals by 4%–20% to identify (1) the adaptation practices farmers implemented; (2) how reported crop yields and farm income were impacted; and (3) how adaptation practices varied by farm and farmer characteristics. We found the most commonly used adaptations were reduced spending, installation of more efficient irrigation systems or less frequent watering, and changing crop rotations. Farmers reported losing on average 7.6% of their yield and 8.4% of their income over the first two years of the water cuts. We found no systematic variation based on specific farm or farmer characteristics. Drawing on these results and prior research, we present a typology of adaptation categories intended to inform future research, allow comparisons to adaptation strategies elsewhere, and assist policymakers in designing effective policy interventions.

The goal of this study was to better understand how to design guidance to flush chemically contaminated residential water heaters. The specific objectives were to identify factors that influence fixture flow rates and water heater turnover and develop and test mass balance models for various sizes of residential water heaters on the basis of real‐world flow conditions. Flow monitoring was conducted for two residential buildings. Water pressure, aerators, and the number of fixtures running affected flow rates, which differed between hot and cold water systems.Heaters (19, 40, 50, and 80 gal) exhibited characteristics of both continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTRs) and plug‐flow reactors. The ideal CSTR model was overly conservative in predicting contaminant concentration exiting water heaters. A variable‐volume CSTR model more accurately predicted contaminant concentration for the heater types examined. Contaminated water characteristics (i.e., chemical volatility, toxicity) and potential exposures should be a primary consideration when choosing which procedures to implement.