tree on fire

Strengthening Climate Resilience

We advance human, infrastructure and ecosystem resilience in the face of potentially devastating climate impacts by developing and implementing leading-edge technologies and engineering approaches.

From droughts to flooding, heatwaves and wildfires, the need to adapt and strengthen community resilience to the impacts of climate change is critical and immediate. By developing solutions such as safer water systems, more robust fire-resistant materials, optimized irrigation, and novel cooling systems, we’re engineering better ways to protect communities.

The House That Doesn’t Burn

More than 2.7 million Californians live in places with a high or extremely high risk of wildfire, as of 2007. Since then, California has only gotten hotter, drier, more populated and experienced its largest and most destructive wildfires in recorded history. How do you make your home where disaster is a given? How do you learn to live with it?

Those questions are at the root of Michele Barbato’s research.

Michele Barbato and 3 students

Research in Action

A black electric vehicle is parked as it charges

EPA Removal of Vehicle Emissions Limits Won’t Stop Shift to Electric Vehicles, but Will Make it Harder, Slower and More Expensive

Alan Jenn, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis, discusses the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to rescind its landmark 2009 decision affirming greenhouse gases as a threat to public health and welfare, and its impact on electric vehicles.

Rows of people presenting at Engineering Design Showcase at UC Davis

Sandia National Laboratories Celebrates Aggie Engineers with Design Awards

For an implantable device improving outcomes of rotator cuff surgery and an IoT waste sorting system, two undergraduate engineering teams have received the Sandia Engineering Design Award for their senior design projects at UC Davis.

Farms

EV Battery Recycling Key to Future Lithium Supplies

UC Davis researchers model the future of lithium supplies and find battery recycling could dramatically reduce the need for new mines. The team calls for smarter policies and faster action to make EV adoption greener, cleaner and more resilient.


Read more research in action

Engineering a better world calls for solutions of a different caliber, demanding innovation across disciplines using a design-centric approach.

We employ and develop intelligent systems and automation, tools at the nano-and-micro- scales and engineering for all that will revolutionize energy systems, strengthen climate resilience, advance human health and transform mobility to bring a sustainable, healthier and more resilient world within reach.