URBANA, Ill. ­– Urban areas face increasing problems with stormwater management. Impervious surfaces on roads and buildings cause flooding, which impacts the water quality of streams, rivers and lakes. Green infrastructure, including features such as rain barrels, green roofs, rain gardens, and on-site water treatment, can provide affordable and environmentally sound ways to manage precipitation.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $3.3 million grant to a multidisciplinary research team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop a precise system for measuring greenhouse gas emissions from commercial bioenergy crops grown in central Illinois.

URBANA, Ill. – The U.S. Midwest produces at least a third of the world’s corn and soybean supply each year. Feeding the world requires a lot of fertilizer, mostly in the form of nitrogen and phosphorus. While nitrogen can literally be pulled out of the air, phosphorus has to be mined from finite phosphate rock reserves and treated to be made available to plants. Most of the world’s phosphate rock is in Morocco, and at some point these reserves will run out.

From mid-November 2015 through February 2016, scientists used GPS transmitters to track the movements of Canada geese near Midway International Airport in Chicago. They discovered that – in the colder months, at least – some geese are hanging out on rooftops, in a rail yard and in a canal close to Midway’s runways. This behavior increases the danger of collisions between geese and airplanes, the researchers say.
 

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A revolution in Midwestern agriculture has to happen to minimize the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxic zone, according to the University of Illinois Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).

It is a little-known fact that corn — a Midwestern staple crop — has a bearing on the Gulf of Mexico’s health. The link is nitrogen, a common agricultural fertilizer component. According to a team of Illinois researchers, each annual harvest removes just 60-70% of nitrogen from fields.

URBANA, Ill. – World leaders convened for the UN Climate Summit in September amid dire projections of climate instability. The problem is multifaceted, of course, but a recent IPCC report identifies deforestation as the main driver of land-based greenhouse gas emissions, which comprise almost a quarter of all human contributions to climate change. What if more people around the world could be paid to keep forests healthy and intact?

URBANA, Ill. – Researchers and Extension Specialists from University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences are asking Illinois growers to share basic planting, harvest, and yield data with the college to learn from the extraordinary growing conditions experienced this year.

URBANA, Ill. – Given the alarming pace of climate change, it is increasingly important to understand what factors motivate people to take action – or not – on environmental issues. A recent study in Sustainability Science shows that deeply held values, which align closely with political leanings, can predict whether someone takes action to protect the environment. And it suggests people on opposite ends of the political spectrum can be spurred to take action, as long as messaging taps into those values.

URBANA, Ill. – Hydrologic models that simulate and predict water flow are used to estimate how natural systems respond to different scenarios such as changes in climate, land use, and soil management. The output from these models can inform policy and regulatory decisions regarding water and land management practices.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Like atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide, ground-level ozone is on the rise. But ozone, a noxious chemical byproduct of fossil fuel combustion, has received relatively little attention as a potential threat to corn agriculture.