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Agriculture, Plant Sciences,
Food
UC and the Environment
Energy and Transportation
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Natural Habitats
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Marine Sciences
Air, Climate
and Space
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Environment
> UC and the Environment
Our health goes hand in hand with a healthy environment.
At the beginning of the 20th century, UC chemists developed a high-voltage
“electrical rain” device to clean smokestack emissions
by grabbing toxic particles before they entered the atmosphere.
That process is still used today. A half-century later, UC engineers
were the first to identify the photochemical process that creates
smog. As pollution from automobiles increased, UC researchers designed
a carburetor that led to fuel injection for cleaner-running cars.
Looking higher into the sky, UC scientists in 1957 were the first
to recognize global warming, or the “greenhouse effect,”
that traps solar heat in the earth’s atmosphere. In 1974,
a UC chemist discovered that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, were
depleting the ozone layer. That finding led to the 1976 ban on CFC
propellants such as those in aerosol cans.
In the early 90s, UC researchers invented a steam injection process
to clean contaminated soil. UC scientists also developed the first
practical process for turning salt water into fresh water –
a discovery that has created fresh-water rivers in North Africa
and the Middle East.
UC scientists looked to the seas in the 1950s to help save the gray
whale from near-extinction; and a UC Bird Research Group began nursing
California’s peregrine falcons back from the brink of extinction
in 1975.
Please visit the topic pages for:
Agriculture,
Plant Sciences and Food
Air, Climate and
Space
Energy and Transportation
Water and Marine
Sciences
Wildlife and
Natural Habitats
as well as the UC general and topic-specific resources listed below.
John
Muir Institute of the Environment
Davis Tahoe Research
Group
Davis Information Center for the
Environment - a cooperative
effort of UC Davis and more than 30
private, state, federal,
and international organizations interested
in environmental
protection
Davis
Environmental Outreach
Irvine Department of Environmental Health, Science and Policy
Los Angeles Institute
of the Environment
White Mountain Research
Station – North America’s highest
research station (elevation 14,249
feet)
Sierra
Nevada Research Institute - will conduct research on
sustainability issues such as watersheds,
air quality, fire
ecology, biodiversity, climate change,
land use and
transportation, and resource management
Earth Sciences
at Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley
National Laboratory Microbial Ecology and
Environmental Engineering Department
UC
Merced - Saving A Precious Landscape (pdf)
UC
Press is worldwide distributor for Sierra Club books
Earthquakes and Geomechanics
Northern California
Earthquake Data Center
National
Information Center for Earthquake Engineering
George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation
(NEES):
UC Berkeley
UC San Diego
Pacific Earthquake
Engineering Research Center
Berkeley
National Laboratory Geophysics and Geomechanics
Los Alamos National Laboratory - Seismic Network
Seismology research at UC Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Institute for Crustal Studies
Forestry
Berkeley
Center for Forestry
Integrated
Hardwood Range Management Program
Center
for Urban Forest Research
California
Oak Mortality Task Force
Remediation, Waste Management and Toxics
Berkeley
National Laboratory Environmental Remediation
Technology Program
Los
Alamos National Laboratory Environmental Science and
Waste Technology News Releases
Berkeley Institute for Environmental Science and Engineering
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water pollution, solid waste management,
environmental
pathogens, applied ecology, geomorphology,
air quality,
industrial exposure to chemicals,
water re-use,
bioengineering, and nuclear waste
management
Toxic Substances
Research and Teaching Program
Riverside Environmental
Toxicology
Santa Cruz Environmental
Toxicology Department
Wildfires
Los
Alamos National Laboratory - Wildfire Modeling
UC National
Labs and the Environment
Ask
the Experts about Agriculture and Environmental Topics
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The Sierra Nevada Research Institute is creating new knowledge on questions of national and international scope through the prism of the natural laboratory that is UC Merced's home -- the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada region.
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