Sustainability

Shrubs blooming in a specific area of Africa might hold the answers to feeding millions of people on that continent, and possibly others.

UC Merced’s library used to be one of the trashiest places on campus – patrons generated a lot more garbage than recycling.

MERCED, Calif. — People talk about climate change all the time.

But researchers at the University of California, Merced, are working to find out exactly how it will affect the millions of people who depend on the San Joaquin River for their drinking water, irrigation and food growth, and energy.

Campus diners who take out their meals are helping save the environment one container at a time.

MERCED, Calif. — Researchers at UC Merced are taking an important step toward a statewide water-monitoring system by installing wireless sensors across the American River basin.

The system, which is also being used in the Sierra Nevada, is designed to give continuous information about how much water is available to users, and could go live online at the beginning of 2013.

There’s a reason the UC Merced plasma lab is isolated behind a locking fence near the entrance to campus.

There’s some serious heat being produced down there.

They traveled nearly 20 hours by plane and bus across 5,700 miles to spend three weeks in the Central Valley sun.

California's Central Valley environment is getting healthier, but not fast enough. Its air quality is still among the worst in the nation, according to a report released today. 

The Sierra Nevada Research Institute at the University of California, Merced, and The Great Valley Center jointly produced "The State of the Great Central Valley: Assessing the Region Via Indicators — The Environment 2006-2011."

The report tracks a variety of environmental indicators within the Central Valley and shows mixed results.

From the caves of Belize to laboratories in Japan, UC Merced faculty members and students are abroad conducting research this summer across the globe.

Making an entire campus sustainable takes a lot of planning, education and work.

But those efforts are what earned two of UC Merced’s sustainability leaders systemwide recognition.