Sustainable California

Natural Resources

We Depend on Nature to Live.

All that humans rely on for day-to-day living has come from this small, limited planet and the distant sun's energy.

Natural resources are often managed for multiple purposes and values, from recreation and beauty, to timber, water and minerals and wildlife habitat. UC researchers explore the importance of supporting the complex web of species and interactions that sustain these resources over time.

Learn about science-based management, with attention to surface and groundwater supplies, forests, and marine ecosystems, and the sustainable infrastructures that inform our decision making and planning.

Water's Signature

12/4/2018

Katherine Markovich, PhD teamed up with fellow graduate students Stephen Maples and Lauren Foster in the NSF Climate Change Water and Society Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeship (CCWAS IGERT) to study water resources in Chile. Using water's signature, the isotopic values for snow, rivers, and groundwater, Dr. Katie Markovich is developing an understanding of Chile's water portfolio under different climate conditions. Like many of Graham Fogg's students at UC...

Managing Private Land for Public Benefit

9/24/2018

Grand initiatives such as the National Parks program, begun in the late 1800s, are for many people a hallmark of land conservation. However, the majority of land nationally (~60% overall; ranging from <5% to >95% on a state-by-state basis) is privately owned. These private lands can have conservation value too. Join Rangeland Manager Billy Freeman and UC Merced Management Professor Catherine Keske as they explore McKenzie Ranch, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California...

Bioeconomics of Sustainable Fisheries

9/20/2018

Globally, over the past century, coastal fisheries have faced overharvesting and mismanagement. California is no exception. This video recounts stories from fishermen, and others engaged in commercial fisheries, about the decades-long struggle to replenish stocks through a variety of management measures. Through their experiences, we discover the many successes in recovering stocks, the capricious nature of the biology of some species, and also emerging challenges for managing...

California's Watershed: Beyond the Brink

7/13/2018

Drought, climate change, an aging infrastructure and growing population threaten the water California's San Joaquin Valley uses to supply most of the nation's produce and a large proportion of its livestock and dairy. "Adequate water for food for the nation is a water security issue, and it's also a national security issue," says UC Merced CITRIS researcher Roger Bales in a new documentary examining water problems and solutions across the United States and...

Knowing Our Water - The UC Water Academy Journey

5/21/2018

A look at The UC Water Academy, an experiential educational component inaugurated in 2017 by The University of California Water Security and Sustainability Research Initiative that aims to train the next generation of water leaders in the state. After three months of studies, the students from four UC campuses visited key water infrastructure sites, met with experts in agriculture, conveyance, and natural resources management, and finally rafted the South Fork of the American...

Flooding Orchards to Replenish Groundwater A UC Experiment in Groundwater Replenishment Strategies

3/19/2018

The long California drought forced many growers to pump groundwater to irrigate their crops. With the establishment of California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act replenishment of California's groundwater supplies is of utmost importance. To develop replenishment strategies, Professor Helen Dahlke joins fellow UC Davis researchers, UC Cooperative Extension and California farmers to test the impacts of irrigating almond orchards in the winter to recharge groundwater...

Merging Conservation Tillage with Overhead Precision Irrigation

11/12/2017

See how California farmers and UC agricultural researchers are working to merge both conservation tillage practices and precision irrigation to save time, labor, and water while reducing the cost of producing crops for California agriculture.

Minimum Tillage Systems

10/17/2017

Farmers can't control the costs of seed, fertilizers, chemicals, water or the price they can get for their crops - but they can control tillage costs. Learn how California's farmers, ag industry and UC researchers are working together and finding ways to cut costs with minimum tillage practices.

Conservation Tillage Dairy Silage Cropping Systems

9/1/2017

Explore how California dairy farmers are working together to perfect techniques to maximize the benefits of conservation tillage in producing dairy feed to reduce inputs and costs, increase quality and ensure healthier more productive and sustainable agricultural soils and production.

Conservation Tillage Tomato Cropping Systems

7/31/2017

With an over 700 percent increase in productivity in the last century, the California tomato industry represents 95 percent of all processing tomatoes produced in the US. See how UC scientists and California farmers continue to develop methods to sustain this productivity, improve soils and reduce water use.

The Value of Residues in Conservation Agriculture Systems

7/13/2017

The norm in conventional agricultural practice is to make the residue from old crops disappear, a practice that hasn't changed in over 70 years. Explore how California farmers and UC scientists are working together to perfect techniques to maximize the benefits of these crop residues to develop healthier more productive soils, reduce water consumption, and ensure sustainable agricultural production.

Introduction to Conservation Agriculture Cropping Systems

5/20/2017

Throughout history, the loss of arable land has attended the decline of great civilizations, from Mesopotamia to the Nile. Now with the stresses of environmental change and ever increasing demands on agricultural productivity, efforts to maintain the viability of our agricultural natural resources are ever more important. This introduction to the principles of conservation agriculture shows how California's farmers and scientists are collaborating on developing the practical...

Water in the Balance

5/5/2017

How researchers at UC Merced are developing a better understanding of the three sources of water upon which California depends in order to adapt to the effects of environmental changes and make better use of this most precious of our natural resources.

Sierra-Net

5/5/2017

Researchers from UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) have developed an innovative remote sensing network to provide real-time assessment of California snow pack in order to better manage water supplies for a variety of users.

Join Sustainable California

5/5/2017

Introducing Sustainable California - where you connect with your University and the real-world solutions it is providing to maintain the sustainability and vitality of our state. Become part of real-world solutions so together we can meet the 21st century challenges of global climate change while maintaining California's unique biodiversity and sustaining the human and environmental health of California.

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Links & Resources

Special AGU Presentation:

Making Up For Lost Snow by Roger Bales

Your Sustainable California Partners:

UC Water

Sierra Nevada Research Institute, UC Merced

CITRIS and the Banatao Institute

Monitoring Water Resources:

Sierra-Net

Live Resources Date:

Real-Time Water Resource Data

Links & Resources

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