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Sierra Nevada Research Institute

December 16, 2025

Photo depicts climate scientist Michael Mann speaking at a podium at UC Merced.
The global climate crisis was entirely predictable and impacts nearly every facet of life. But we still can slow its progress and mitigate the effects we already see. That was the message delivered earlier this month by climate scientist Michael Mann, who spoke at the first in a series of...
On a hot June evening, UC Merced Professor Josh Viers joined farm advocate and small farmer Tom Willey on his front porch near Fresno to talk about California’s water, disadvantaged...
About 4.5 billion people around the globe do not have access to adequate sanitation, and what they do have — typically pit latrines and lagoons — are responsible for widespread illnesses...
UC Merced celebrates Research Week from March 2-6 to highlight the ground-breaking work taking place at the University of California’s newest campus. The annual week of events, sponsored by...
In Yosemite, prescribed burning saved the Tuolumne giant sequoia grove from the Rim Fire, the largest-ever Sierra Nevada wildfire.
UC Merced researchers outline solutions to the severe wildfire problems in California’s mountain forests and closely linked water resource challenges in a documentary premiering on KVIE, the...
Even a little forest management significantly increases water runoff in the Central Sierra Nevada and other semi-arid regions, while drier forests need more extensive treatments, according to a new...
Stands of brown, dead trees throughout Sierra Nevada forests
The most extreme drought event in hundreds of years caused a catastrophic die-off of the Sierra Nevada’s mature trees in 2015-2016. A study published today in Nature Geoscience details how...
pine tree seedlings in a greenhouse
Climate change is bad news for forests, and a new study by UC Merced Professor Emily Moran demonstrates one aspect of that news. Higher summer temperatures hurt tree seedlings’ growth and...
A verdant forest floor
A nine-year experiment by a UC Merced Department of Life and Environmental Sciences professor and his colleagues is illuminating the importance of soil carbon in maintaining healthy and functioning...
A picture of a soil chronosequence in Hawaii shows yellow sulfur-rich soil that has built up over millions of years.
A rigorous, first-of-its-kind global study provides new insights into the natural history of soil biodiversity and shows that changes in soil pH during soil development is a major driver of most of...

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