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