Nutrients flowing into the lake increase the algae population that leads to diminished lake clarity. Alan Gertler, head of the university's atmospheric sciences program and a research professor at DRI, completed a summer 1999 study that sought to quantify which pollutants are the most significant atmospheric nitrogen sources for both the forest and lake in the Tahoe Basin. Gertler and university graduate student Leland Tarnay found that during the summer months alone, the amount of nitric acid and ammonia absorbed by the lake is equivalent to what other studies have estimated go into the lake in a year. The majority of the technology has been created by Kleppe's students in the university's Lemelson Center for Invention, Innovation and Entrepeneurship. Gary Blomquist, university biochemistry professor, has studied bark beetle behavior and is working with the U.S. Forest Service and the Nevada Division of Forestry on new strategies to ward off the attacks of the insect, which can kill great stands of coniferous trees.
Trees felled by the rice-sized insects become dangerous fuels for wildfire.
Richard Schweikert, chairman of the university's geological sciences department, geology professor Mary Lahren, Steve Wesnousky, director of the university's Center for Neotectonic Studies, and geology professor Robert Karlin have performed research to better map the ground under Tahoe and define weather patterns dating back thousands of years. Richard Tracy, director of the university's Biological Resources Research Center, and biology professors Peter Brussard and Murphy are at the core of an innovative approach requested by Nevada U.S. Sen. Harry Reid in 1992 to develop plans to improve the health not only of Lake Tahoe in the form of the Lake Tahoe Watershed Assessment, but for the entire Carson Range that borders Lake Tahoe on the west and sprawls to Reno.