ATWATER -- At the University of California at Merced's temporary quarters here, Roger Bales is known as one of the "snow guys."

And, so, that is where you are likely to find the engineering professor -- in the snow, or off somewhere talking about it.

Like the time he went to Yosemite with two graduate students to install equipment to help find more accurate ways of measuring the snowpack.

On another day, the hydrologic engineer went to Berkeley to talk with colleagues from other UC campuses and Stanford about plans for a "new generation" of snowpack measurements in the Sierra Nevada.

Bales said his research will benefit parks and forest resource managers, irrigation district managers, and anyone else who wants to know how much water is available, or how much sediment will wash downstream in a big storm.

"The work I do is relevant to climate and water decisions," said Bales, who studies hydrology, snow and ice, and climate impacts on water resources.

Bales, 52, has researched the Sierra Nevada for more than 15 years, but from Arizona. "This is an opportunity to focus more intensely on (the Sierra Nevada)," Bales said.

Bales joined the UC Merced faculty last summer after a 19-year professorship at the University of Arizona at Tucson.

He estimated that teaching took up a good six to 10 hours a week in Arizona, and he said his schedule is equally as busy now -- even though he has no classes, since UC Merced is not scheduled to open until fall 2005.

His teaching has been replaced with time spent building relationships with people in the valley, preparing curriculum and policies and procedures, and recruiting employees, he said.

Degree on earth systems

He also is traveling more, and the airport is hours away. "I'm eager to set up better video- conference equipment," he said.

He traveled recently to an out-of-state professional meeting and to Washington, D.C., to give scientific advice to the federal government as a member of a National Academy of Sciences advisory panel.

When he is not on the road, Bales is answering e-mail from prospective students and research collaborators, or helping a colleague review a grant proposal.

He also is the adviser to four graduate students, and he has taken the lead on developing an environmental engineering degree at UC Merced.

While UC Irvine and UC Riverside offer environmental engineering degrees, Bales said degrees and faculty are unique at each campus. For example, he said, the Riverside degree is industry-oriented; the Merced degree will focus on earth systems.

"We have to define our niche in California," he said.

Bales and his family have settled in Catheys Valley, in Mariposa County. He commutes 45 minutes, though once the campus is built the drive will shrink to 30 minutes.

"We didn't find a place we liked in Merced because the market's tight here," he said, adding that his family likes the lifestyle of the foothills, and his children, ages 10 and 7, have signed up for 4-H.

His wife, Martha Conklin, also is a founding faculty member at UC Merced. She studies rivers and streams, the runoff from the snow that Bales knows so well.

"For us, it was also exciting to be a part of something new," he said.