Environment

While the pressures of climate change bring a sense of urgency to renewable energy development, a new study serves as a roadmap toward uniting the goals of a low-carbon future with that of ecological sustainability and conservation.

From almond hulls to winegrape pomace, use of agricultural by-products in California dairy rations helps keep dairies and crops financially viable while reducing waste and water use.

A new project led by the Wild Energy Initiative at UC Davis will study pollinator habitat restoration at a photovoltaic solar facility operated on campus by SunPower Corp.

With a little time and effort, rangeland managers can have a dramatic impact on the resilience of California’s riparian areas, which are important to the state’s human, environmental and economic well-being. Rangeland ecologists at the University of California, Davis, found that when ranchers invest even one week a year in practices that keep cows away from creeks — like herding, fencing and providing supplemental nutrition and water — they can improve riparian health by as much as 53 percent.

For a truly sustainable fishery, more needs to be considered than just the abundance of the harvested species. Harvesting even abundant species can create indirect extinction cascades down the food web that can harm the long-term economic and ecological sustainability of a fishery. 

That is according to a study from the University of California, Davis, published today in the journal Science Advances. 

When you go to the grocery store, you can look at an apple and know if it was grown in Chile, Washington or somewhere closer to you by a quick glance at its sticker. But consumers have largely been in the dark when it comes to energy, and how far it has traveled to reach them. 

Clean air, clean water and a functioning ecosystem are considered priceless. Yet the economic value of nature remains elusive in cost-benefit analysis of climate policy regulations and greenhouse-gas-reduction efforts.

High-severity wildfires in northern coastal California have been increasing by about 10 percent per decade since 1984, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, that associates climate trends with wildfire.

With their tough skins, pointy armor and legendary stamina, cacti are made to defend themselves from whatever nature throws at them. 

But large solar energy facilities are one threat that cacti weren’t built to withstand, according to a study by the University of California, Davis. 

California may see a 54 percent increase in rainfall variability by the end of this century, according to new research from the lab of Assistant Professor Da Yang, a 2019 Packard Fellow and atmospheric scientist with the University of California, Davis.