• Detailed look at decentralized water systems

    The “decentralized” water system at the Center for Sustainable Landscapes (CSL) at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, which treats all non-potable water on site, contributes to the net-zero building’s recognition as one of the greenest buildings in the world. However, research into the efficacy of these systems versus traditional treatment is practically non-existent in the literature. Thanks to a collaboration between Phipps and the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, researchers now have a greater understanding of the life cycle of water reuse systems designed for living buildings, from construction through day-to-day use.

  • Stopping human-made droughts and floods before they start

    Alberta’s rivers are a main source of water for irrigated agriculture in Canada’s Prairie provinces. But climate change and increased human interference mean that the flow of these headwaters is under threat. This could have major implications for Canadian gross domestic product, and even global food security.

  • What caused the Flint water crisis

    Flint, Michigan, continues to grapple with the public health crisis that unfolded as lead levels in its tap water spiked to alarming levels. Now the scientists who helped uncover the crisis have tested galvanized iron pipes extracted from the “ground zero” house. They confirm that the lead that had accumulated on the interior surface of the pipes was the most likely source of the lead contamination.

  • Salt on the earth

    When ice and snow melt away into streams and groundwater, road salt goes with it. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is mindful of its salt use: It applies nearly 27,500 tons of salt every year to 779 miles of Erie County roads, including highways. Researchers have developed a map that shows elevated concentrations of salt along Trout Run, which flows into Fourmile Creek, which empties into Lake Erie, the primary source of drinking water for the 280,000 residents of Erie County.

  • Affordable water in the U.S.: A looming crisis

    If water rates continue rising at projected amounts, the number of U.S. households unable to afford water could triple in five years, to nearly 36 percent, a new study finds. A variety of factors, ranging from aging infrastructure to climate change to population decline in urban areas, are making residents’ ability to afford water and wastewater services a burgeoning crisis.

  • Changing rainfall patterns linked to water security in India

    Changing rainfall is the key factor driving changes in groundwater storage in India, according to a new study. The study shows that changing monsoon patterns—which are tied to higher temperatures in the Indian Ocean—are an even greater driver of change in groundwater storage than the pumping of groundwater for agriculture.

  • Groundwater resources around the world could be depleted by 2050s

    Human consumption could deplete groundwater in parts of India, southern Europe, and the United States in the coming decades, according to new research presented at the 2016 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. New modeling of the world’s groundwater levels finds aquifers — the soil or porous rocks that hold groundwater — in the Upper Ganges Basin area of India, southern Spain, and Italy could be depleted between 2040 and 2060.

  • How much water do we use? New interactive maps tells us

    Wash. Rinse. Repeat. With every shampoo or load of laundry you may wonder, how much water did I just use? Now multiply that thought across the nation and add other types of ways to use water, from irrigating crops to sustaining thermoelectric power generation. The USGS National Water-Use Science project has documented sixty years of water-use from 1950 to 2010 in an interactive map. You may choose a year and pick a category to see how much water your state uses.

  • Syrian crisis altered region’s land and water resources

    The Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee migration caused sudden changes in the area’s land use and freshwater resources. Using satellite imagery processed in Google Earth Engine, researchers determined the conflict in Syria caused agricultural irrigation and reservoir storage to decrease by nearly 50 percent compared to prewar conditions.

  • New wastewater system design guidelines help protect aquatic life

    New wastewater system design guidelines can help municipal governments better protect aquatic life and save millions of dollars a year. Engineers developed guidelines that can tailor the design of specialized filters, called fluidized bed reactors, to local conditions and help prevent phosphorous deposits from forming in wastewater systems.

  • New lead detector for water

    Engineers have developed what you might think of as a “canary in the coal mine” for lead in water. ). They designed a sensor with a graphene-based nanomaterial that can immediately detect lead and other heavy metals. The new platform technology can be used for one-time testing of lead in tap water through a handheld device.

  • Water resources for developing countries

    Water experts believe by 2050 almost half of the world’s population will live in countries with a chronic water shortage. The shortfall is the result of population growth, which leads to a greater demand for food, increased pollution, and climate instability. At the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s (BGU)’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, eighty scientists and 250 graduate students are working on ways to tackle the problem using cutting-edge science in partnership with academics around the world.

  • People prefer conservation as way to protect drinking water

    The water crisis in Flint, Michigan put the need to protect and invest in clean drinking water front and center in the minds of many Americans. But how to go about investing, as well as how to get the public on board with such spending, is a difficult challenge that faces policymakers. Researchers have found that when given the choice, people prefer to invest their money in conservation, such as protecting key areas of a watershed — also referred to as green infrastructure — than traditional water treatment plants, also referred to as gray infrastructure.

  • Water war between Asian nuclear powers looms

    A potential global catastrophe looms in Asia as rapidly rising water demand collides with a diminishing resource on which at least 300 million people depend directly, and the current political rhetoric between India and Pakistan underlines the risk of failing to manage correctly and cooperatively vital water resources shared between nations. The Indus Water Treaty governs the distribution Himalayan-origin water in the 1,120,000 km2 basin drained by the Indus River, six major tributaries, and connected waterways among India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China, but India wants to modify the treaty or walk away from it – and Pakistan announced that any Indian attempt to renege from the Treaty would be deemed an act of war.

  • Mapping corrosive groundwater across the U.S.

    Approximately 44 million people in the United States rely on groundwater from wells as their water source. A new study found that untreated groundwater from twenty-five states could be potentially highly or very highly corrosive, a recent study finds. Corrosive water, while itself not dangerous, can dissolve lead and other metals from pipes, plumbing, and other metal surfaces into drinking water. While the quality of municipal water supplies is regulated and treated, domestic well owners are responsible for the treatment of their personal water supplies.