Environmental Research

Multinational Effort to Map South Africa’s Biodiversity from the Air Earns NASA Award

October 15, 2025

BioSCape, a multinational research project co-led by UC Merced, the University at Buffalo and the University of Cape Town, which monitored Earth’s biodiversity from the air, has received a Group Achievement Award as part of the 2024-25 NASA Honor Awards. A new documentary also showcases...

UC Merced Water Research Earns Share of $50 Million Grant

The University of California, Merced, just became part of a massive, five-year, multi-million-dollar international research consortium that tackles water-related aspects of energy production and use...

Engineering Student Making an Impact on Agriculture

Rebecca Quinte is a mechanical engineer who is learning to apply her skills and knowledge in unexpected ways, and that could end up benefitting farmers in the Central Valley and beyond. The UC Merced...

UC Solar Symposium Focuses on Innovations and Policy

California Public Utilities Commission Commissioner Liane Randolph will offer the opening remarks at this year's UC Solar Research Symposium in San Francisco, scheduled for Oct. 16. UC Solar, based...

UC President’s Whirlwind Visit Covers Many Bases

University of California President Janet Napolitano learned about UC Merced’s outreach to local high school students and efforts to support the UC system’s Global Food and Carbon Neutrality...

Get Involved With Sustainability This Fall

After such a hot summer, a cool campus will be a welcome change this fall. UC Merced is aiming to be the coolest by participating in the University of California’s inaugural systemwide Cool Campus...

UC Merced Researchers Gathering Data to Tackle California’s Water Crisis on Multiple Fronts

Note: This story originally ran in the Fall 2015 issue of UC Merced Magazine. By Joel Patenaude California, long envied by the rest of the country for its climate, beauty and natural resources, is...

Humanities Center Aims to Bring Depth to Water Issues

Open any newspaper — or news website — and you’re likely to see at least one article about California’s water crisis. From climate change to wildfires to groundwater to El...

Sun and Salt: How Solar Tech Can Help California’s Drought

By Andy MurdockUniversity of California Newsroom In the midst of California’s ongoing drought, researchers at the University of California Advanced Solar Technologies Institute (UC Solar) at UC...

Sustainability Ideas Lead to Award-Winning Proposal

Undergraduate student Andrew John De Los Santos wasn’t passionate about sustainability until he started sorting through trash as a recycling and composting intern at UC Merced last fall. While...