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Environmental Research

June 25, 2025

Photo depicts UC Merced student Jesse Martinez operating a robot on the Experimental Smart Farm.
At UC Merced's biggest lab, students work from before sunrise to well after dusk. They are operating the university's Experimental Smart Farm, 40 acres of dirt and plants, research and experiments. They study everything from pollinators to hydroponics, but there are more than just...
Photo depicts the reservoir at the UC Merced Experimental Smart Farm.
A UC Merced team competing in a U.S. Department of Energy contest won its division with a proposal to use floating solar panels to power the campus's Experimental Smart Farm. The Solar...
Photo depicts UC Merced graduate Adamaris Alvarez in a black hat on a blue and gold graphic background.
Growing up in Watsonville, a vibrant agricultural community on California's Central Coast, Adamaris Alvarez always knew she wanted to work in agriculture. She worked on her family's berry...
Hurricane Bud left some surprising changes in its wake, UC Merced researchers found.
With careful planning and a little luck, researchers found a surprising upside to hurricanes after a Category 4 storm disrupted their expedition off the coast of Mexico. The team was able to...
The Central Valley is a major contributor to a growing dust problem, in large part because of agriculture, researchers say.
An average of more than 1 million acres of idled farmland a year is a significant contributor to a growing dust problem in California that has implications for millions of residents’ health and...
A dust storm rises near Owens Lake. Photo Courtesy of UC San Diego
People don't think about dust much until it's time to clean the house, but a new report by UC researchers could raise awareness of the growing threat of dust and dust storms. Dust affects...
Flames, the beach and the ocean are depicted in a scene from the January 2025 Palisades fire.
Pictures accompanying Professor John Abatzoglou's presentation on the 2025 fire season were blurry. That was intentional, he said, because so much about wildfire is unpredictable. "There...
two males with a drone
UC Merced’s School of Engineering and its programs continue to be recognized by U.S. News & World Report as demonstrated in the release today of its 2025 Best Graduate Schools rankings....
UC Merced logo in blue and gold text
Each spring, master’s and doctoral students across UC Merced’s 18 graduate groups are invited to contend in the campus’s Grad Slam Finals. They are given three minutes and one...
UC Merced has assumed its place in the top echelon of research institutions in the nation by earning R1 status from Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The announcement was...

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