Research
Research to sustain natural resource and environmental security for society in a dynamic world.
In order to provide economic, societal, and environmental security in a dynamic and changing environment, NRES faculty engage in basic and applied research that focus on:
- Broad, interconnecting processes in coupled human-natural systems
- Science-based, sustainable management of natural resources
- Conservation and restoration of ecosystem services and environmental resilience
- Strategies to manage and mitigate environmental contaminants
- Informing policy and land use decisions that contribute to economic sustainability and development
NRES faculty conduct research over a wide range of scales:
- Taxonomically, from micro-organisms to plants (grasses, shrubs, trees) to animals (birds, small mammals, wildlife, livestock)
- Geographically, from regional (i.e. the water-limited Great Basin and eastern Sierra) to national to international
Specific areas of research include:
- Services and processes in managed ecosystem, including:
- Production of food, fuel, and fiber for human use
- Managing resources for sustainable economic development
- Fluxes across spheres (biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere)
- Coupled carbon, water, nutrient cycles among organisms, water, air, soil
- Natural and human-induced impacts, including:
- Wildland fire
- Global climate and earth system changes
- Extreme events: climate (drought, floods), pollutants
- Restoration of altered landscapes
- Biodiversity and conservation of managed ecosystems, including:
- Animals, microbes, plants
- Adaptive potential and distribution of species
- Endangered species
- Invasive species
- Landscape genomics
- Environmental quality of water, air, soils, including:
- Fate, transport, and impacts of environmental contaminants
- Environmental impacts of water management & resource development
- Water sustainability