Our Environment at Berkeley: Department of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management
UC Berkeley | College of Natural Resources
A recent study in Science magazine co-authored by Claire Kremen, highlights the importance of wild insects and bees in pollination and agriculture. As reported on NPR: A huge collaboration of bee researchers, from more than a dozen countries, looked at how pollination happens in dozens of … [Read more...]
By Stephanie M. Lee, San Francisco Chronicle Mothers who breathe the kind of pollution emitted by vehicles, coal power plants and factories are significantly likelier to give birth to underweight children than mothers living in less polluted areas, according to international findings … [Read more...]
The increasingly couples-focused public-health policy for AIDS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa underestimates the role that cheating spouses play in transmitting the virus, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley. While cheating spouses are a known avenue for HIV … [Read more...]
What is the role of logging in tropical forests? How is biodiversity affected by this logging? The answers differ and are controversial among ecologists, environmentalists, and policymakers, and these disagreements have implications for the conservation of biodiversity. A new paper by … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — To Rosemary Gillespie, the Hawaiian Islands are a unique and ongoing series of evolutionary and ecological experiments. As each volcano rises above the waves, it is colonized by life from neighboring volcanoes and develops its own flora and fauna. … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — Eating certain veggies not only supplies key nutrients, it may also influence hormone levels and behaviors such as aggression and sexual activity, says a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that could shed light on the role of diet in human … [Read more...]
Written by Virgie Hoban for The Daily Cal UC Berkeley researchers are teaming up with local organizations to plant thousands of ferns in a South Berkeley lot in an effort to extricate toxic chemicals and eventually create a new haven of green gardens. The project, spearheaded by the campus … [Read more...]
A new report co-authored by ESPM graduate student Ellen Kersten, professor Rachel Morello-Frosch, and collaborators at USC and Columbia documents case studies that highlight the work of community-based organizations in California dealing with the “climate gap” – the disproportionate burden of … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — Are gasoline-fueled cars or large diesel trucks the bigger source of secondary organic aerosol (SOA), a major component of smog? UC Berkeley researchers have stepped into this debate with a new study that says diesel exhaust contributes 15 times more than gas emissions per liter of fuel … [Read more...]
Written by Aaraon Reuben and Gabriel Isaacman for The Atlantic In the flat lands of California's Central Valley, oil pumps obscured by waving lines of fuel-richened air dip and rise on the horizon. Two hundred miles to the north and west, aging eighteen-wheelers pound through an urban … [Read more...]
Preventing Chronic Disease is an online peer-reviewed journal published by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They recently recognized PhD student Ellen Kersten's research as outstanding and published … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — Climate change is widely expected to disrupt future fire patterns around the world, with some regions, such as the western United States, seeing more frequent fires within the next 30 years, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, in … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — Fighting fire with fire has been given the green light by a new study of techniques used to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires. And with a rise in wildfires predicted in many parts of the country, researchers say controlled burns and other treatments to manage this risk should be … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — The competition between farmers and fish for precious water in California is intensifying in wine country, suggests a new study by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley. … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — A graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources, deeply influenced by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, is helping to restore the Gulf’s blackened marshes with a project that could also aid threatened ecosystems nationwide, including in … [Read more...]
A University of California wildlife research team working in the Sierra Nevada near Oakhurst, Calif., is asking the public to donate clean, gently used socks for research on a rare weasel called the Pacific fisher. … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. … [Read more...]
Professors Whendee Silver and Dennis Baldocchi speak with NPR correspondent Christopher Joyce about 'carbon ranching'. … [Read more...]
Runoff from the Sierra Nevada, a critical source of California’s water supply, could be enhanced by thinning forests to historical conditions, according to a report from a team of scientists with the University of California, Merced, UC Berkeley and Environmental Defense. The team proposes to … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, finds that consuming bushmeat had a positive effect on children’s nutrition, raising complex questions about the trade-offs between human health and environmental conservation. They further estimated that a … [Read more...]
An alarming 93 percent of San Francisco Bay’s tidal marsh could be lost in the next 50 to 100 years with 5.4 feet (1.65 meters) of sea-level rise and low sediment availability, according to a new study led by PRBO Conservation Science (PRBO). These figures represent the high-end sea-level rise … [Read more...]
When American families sit down to dinner, often the concern is to avoid eating too much. Yet in 2010, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that more than 900 million people around the world were undernourished. By 2050, the world's population is projected to rise to … [Read more...]
By Mike Taugher, Contra Costa Times The tiny culprit behind a deadly oak disease has spread in the East Bay and appears to have crept closer to residential areas in parts of Oakland and Berkeley, according to the latest survey. "It may be an early warning sign," said Matteo Garbelotto, who … [Read more...]
Peter Fimrite, San Francisco Chronicle The deadly pathogen known as sudden oak death is spreading throughout the Bay Area, infecting more trees in more places than have ever been seen before, according to scientists tracking the disease. … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — Orchid bees aren’t so dependent on orchids after all, according to a new study that challenges the prevailing view of how plants and their insect pollinators evolve together. A long-standing belief among biologists holds that species in highly specialized relationships engage … [Read more...]
A new paper co-authored by Professor Damian Elias and published in the recent edition of Science magazine identifies the cause of sounds made by some hummingbird species during courtship. While courting, a male hummingbird will typically climb into the air five to 40 meters and then quickly dives … [Read more...]
BERKELEY — A new study by UC Berkeley and Italian researchers spotlights the hazards of planting trees and other vegetation in regions where they are not native. … [Read more...]
UC scientists built and worked in towers as part of the largest single atmospheric research effort in the state. The data they've collected will guide policymakers dealing with air pollution. … [Read more...]
A paper reviewing the impact of the loss of large predators and herbivores high in the food chain confirms that their decline has had cascading effects in marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems throughout the world. … [Read more...]
Frequently Captured Birds Found to be at Less Risk of Injury Compared to Birds Captured Once … [Read more...]
San Joaquin Valley communities with large Latino populations are exposed to disproportionately high levels of the agricultural chemical nitrate through their drinking water, … [Read more...]
California agriculture reaps $937 million to $2.4 billion per year in economic value from wild, free-living bee species that serve the critical function of pollinating crops, according to a new study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, published this week in the June issue of … [Read more...]
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