Runoff from the Sierra Nevada, a critical source of California’s water supply, could be enhanced by thinning forests to historical conditions, according to a report from a team of scientists with the University of California, Merced, UC Berkeley and the Environmental Defense Fund.
Researchers with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI) at the University of California, Merced, have received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to expand on a prototype system that uses a network of wireless sensors to track snowpack depth, water storage in soil, stream flow, and water use by vegetation in the Sierra — information that is key to efficient usage of such a scarce resource.
In a remarkable outdoor laboratory in the Sierra, a team of researchers led by UC Merced hydrologist Roger Bales is using sensors to gather a mother lode of data to greatly improve ecological measurement and hydrologic forecasting.
Dozens of students at the University of California, Merced, will be able to research new ways of increasing energy efficiency and protecting our environmental resources thanks to a $250,000 gift to the campus from Southern California Edison (SCE).
More than half of the water used in California for farming and drinking and other everyday uses comes by way of runoff from the Sierra Nevada, and gauging the amount of snow there and predicting how much runoff there will be is an annual rite that has a major trickledown effect of its own.
Peter Kirchner may have been born in California’s San Fernando Valley, but his heart and mind have always been close to the mountains.
Hundreds of UC Merced students are about to learn just how far they can stretch a drop of water.
In a remarkable outdoor laboratory in the Sierra, a team of researchers led by UC Merced hydrologist 
