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Environment

February 3, 2025

Members of the BioSCape team are pictured with NASA and South African aircraft.
Measurements and data collected from space can be used to better understand life on Earth. An ambitious, multinational research project funded by NASA and co-led by UC Merced civil and environmental engineering Professor Erin Hestir demonstrated that Earth's biodiversity can be...
Freeing the state from its dependence on fossil fuels means finding the right combination of renewable solutions, as well as efficient, low-cost energy storage.
California’s leaders want the state to reach 100 percent clean energy in the future, including being 60 percent powered by renewable energy by 2030 and being free of fossil fuels entirely by...
Equipment in the Costa Rican rainforest measures the soil emissions.
It is said that rainforests are the Earth’s lungs, capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, building it into lush vegetation and releasing oxygen and water back into the air. But every...
Professor Emily Moran, left, and graduate student Mengjun Shu examine seedlings in the research greenhouse.
Wildfire seasons are intensifying because of climate change. That means reforestation efforts will increase, making it important for scientists and resource managers to understand how to make sure...
When people think of engineering in nature, they tend to think of species such as beavers — the tree-felling, dam-building rodents whose machinations can shape the landscape by creating lakes...
There’s a whole world of activity beneath your feet. Soil holds a large proportion of Earth's biodiversity, and is the place where organisms interact with each other and with plants,...
By 2050, the U.S. population is estimated to grow to 400 million, and the world population to 9.1 billion, requiring a 70 percent increase in global food production. UC Merced is one of four...
Scientists know the whats and whys of using light, heat and electricity to direct chemical reactions toward an end goal. What’s less well understood are the effects mechanical force can have on...
Forest-management actions such as mechanical thinning and prescribed burns don’t just reduce the risk of severe wildfire and promote forest health — these practices can also contribute to...
Superficial media coverage of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) could discourage democratic engagement on resource-management issues by having focused on relatively few...

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