Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE)
- risk-based decision-making
- renewable energy (solar, wind and geothermal)
- bio-based fuels and water desalination
- carbon management and sequestration
- energy efficiency
- and pollution prevention, multiphase flow and process control
- Food-Energy-Water Systems (FEWS)
- Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA)
- Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) in developing communities
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
- Integration of Anthropology and Engineering
- Science Policy
Aquatic ecosystems under threat from competing pressures to meet societal needs for water and food security while sustaining biodiversity and other ecosystem services; expertise in geospatial analytics, hyperspectral and satellite remote sensing, and sensor networks in inland and coastal waters and wetlands
Professor Viers is a watershed scientist with expertise in resource management and environmental decision making. His areas of watershed science research include:
- Agroecology and Conservation Agriculture Planning and Implementation
- Climatic and Hydrological Change Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Strategies
- Ecosystem Service and Biodiversity Inventory, Assessment, and Restoration
- Geospatial Technologies (Geographic Information Systems / Remote Sensing);
- Informatics; Database Design and Data Mining
- Water and Watershed Management; Water Footprinting
- Large scale hydro-economic modeling for water management and policy analysis
- Water management for agricultural, environmental and urban uses
- Agricultural production adaptation to drought and climate change
- Sustainable agroecosystems for water and food security
- Water informatics, consumptive water use in agriculture using remote sensing
- Impact analysis using partial and general equilibrium models
- Surface Water Quality
- Lake and Reservoir Management
- Mercury Cycling in Aquatic Ecosystems
- Natural Treatment Systems
- Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology development
- Energy systems modeling Increasing geographic specificity in LCA
- Climate change mitigation strategies
- Renewable energy systems
- Water and wastewater treatment, especially land-based treatment systems
- Hazardous waste site remediation
- Surface water/groundwater interactions
- Watershed hydrology
- Forest management/water interactions
- Natural tracers for water movement
- Stakeholder engagement
- K-12 environmental education
Raymond Chiao is a professor jointly in the UC Merced schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering. Previously, he was a professor for 38 years at UC Berkeley, where he earned international acclaim (including the Willis E. Lamb Medal and the Einstein Prize for Laser Science) studying nonlinear and quantum optics. At UC Merced, is pursuing a new line of groundbreaking research on gravitational radiation.
- Snow science
- Mountain hydrology
- Water resources
- Sensor networks
- Remote sensing
- Climate change
- Ecosystem climate solutions
- Water resources
- Hydrology
Director, UC Solar
- Solar power and renewable energy
- Elementary particle physics
- Non-imaging optics
- Climate Change and Water Sustainability
- Climate Change and Hydrologic Extremes
- Watershed and Regional Scale Hydrologic Modeling
- Water Resources Sensitivity and Scenario Analysis
- Role of Vegetation Dynamics on Future Water Resources under Climate Change
- Agriculture and Forest Management Options for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainability
- Application of Remote Sensing and LiDAR in Hydrologic Modeling and Natural Resources Evaluation and Management
- Sustainability and Resilience of Urban and Infrastructure Systems
- Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
- Interconnected Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS)
- Systems Thinking and Risk Analysis under Uncertainty
Using a wide range of analytical methods (infra-red spectroscopy, electron microsocpy, x-ray absorption spectroscopy and mass spectroscopy), Professor Traina's group studies:
- Chemical transformations of pollutants in soils, surface and ground water
- Linkages between chemical form or speciation of particular pollutants and their relative toxicities in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
- Roles of geoparticle surfaces and bacteria in pollutant fate
Current projects include the study of:
- Contaminants at Department of Energy waste sites (Cr, Pu and U)
- Role of Fe(II) and HSe- in transformations of nitroaromatic pesticides in wetlands
- Fate of pharmaceuticals in the surface waters of National Parks
- Pedagogic research
- Forensic engineering education and dissemination
- Recruitment, Retention and graduation of first generation and economically disadvantaged students
- Advanced materials to improve sustainability and resilience of civil engineering constructed facilities
- Structural health monitoring
- Computational and analytical models to predict mechanical behavior of adaptive and advanced materials
- Structural component and system-level testing
- Contaminant transport in aquatic systems
- Soil and groundwater remediation
- Development and use of environmental sensors
- Air pollution engineering and science
- Release, transport, transformation, and fate of environmental air pollutants
- Impact of air pollutants in urban, rural and remote areas
- Chemistry and dynamics of organic and inorganic pollutants
- Stationary and mobile emission characterization and source marker determination
- Indoor air quality
- Air pollution dispersion modeling
- Global pollution and climate change
