• Students create low-cost biosensor to detect contaminated water

    Diarrheal disease is the second-leading cause of death in children under five years old — killing as many as 1.5 million children worldwide every year; these startling statistics from the World Health Organization (2009) point to the reason why a group of undergraduate students from Arizona State University is working to develop a low-cost biosensor — a simple device that would detect contaminated drinking water

  • Trade-offs between water for food and for curbing climate change

    Earth’s growing human population needs fresh water for drinking and food production. Fresh water, however, is also needed for the growth of biomass, which acts as a sink of carbon dioxide and thus could help mitigate climate change. Does the Earth have enough freshwater resources to meet these competing demands?

  • Water research thrives as discrepancy between supply and demand for water grows

    The growing discrepancy between supply and demand for water is becoming more challenging each year; developments in water research have the potential to help solve this issue; a new report examines the dynamics of global water research between 2007 and 2011; the analysis highlights the role interdisciplinary and international collaboration plays in the production of high impact water research

  • Bacteria in tap water traced to the water treatment process

    Most of the bacteria that remain in drinking water when it gets to the tap can be traced to filters used in the water treatment process, rather than to the aquifers or rivers where they originated; the findings could open the door to more sustainable water treatment processes that use fewer chemicals and, as a result, produce lower levels of byproducts that may pose health risks; eventually, the work could enable engineers to control the types of microbes in drinking water to improve human health

  • Toilet Challenge, 1: Caltech’s solar-powered toilet wins Reinvent Toilet Challenge

    The World Health Organization reports that 2.5 billion people around the globe are without access to sanitary toilets, which results in the spread of deadly diseases; every year, 1.5 million people, mostly those under the age of five, die from diarrhea; Caltech scientist awarded grant to develop solar-powered sanitation system

  • Toilet Challenge, 2: Loughborough’s hydrocarbonization design wins second Reinvent the Toilet Challenge prize

    Researchers from Loughborough University, located in Leicestershire, United Kingdom , won second prize in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge; their toilet uses a process called Continuous Thermal Hydrocarbonization which kills all pathogens to create safe to handle, valuable material and uses power from heat generated during processing

  • Toilet Challenge, 3: U Toronto wins toilet challenge third place for sand filter and UV-ray design

    The U of T solution is novel in its simplicity. It uses a sand filter and UV-ray disinfecting chamber to process liquid waste and a smolder chamber, similar to a charcoal barbeque, to incinerate solid waste that has been flattened and dried in a roller/belt assembly

  • Wastewater key to addressing growing global water shortage

    Parched cities and regions across the globe are using sewage effluent and other wastewater in creative ways to augment drinking water, but four billion people still do not have adequate supplies, and that number will rise in coming decades

  • World facing increasingly challenging water situation

    New measure developed for sustainability of global groundwater water supply points to overuse of water in Asia and North America; approximately 1.7 billion people, most residing in Asia, live in areas where groundwater resources or groundwater-dependent ecosystems are under threat

     

  • California’s hydropower is vulnerable to climate change

    Fifteen percent of California’s electricity comes from hydropower, a cheap and relatively clean energy source; .about 75 percent of this hydropower comes from high-elevation units, located above 1,000 ft.; with most of them located in Northern California and the Sierra Mountains; if California loses snowpack under climate warming, these high-elevation reservoirs might not be able to store enough water for hydropower generation in summer months when the demand is much higher

  • Researcher wins public interest award for research into water safety

    Virginia Tech professor wins prestigious public service award for research work which found that many homes in the nation’s capital were receiving water contaminated with lead leached from city pipes to an extent far exceeding acceptable industry levels; the amount of lead in the water likely put several thousand people, especially children, at risk, yet government agencies, including CDC, used faulty data and analysis to hide the risks

  • Surface coal mining destroying West Virginia streams, rivers

    More than 22 percent of streams and rivers in southern West Virginia have been degraded to the point they may now qualify as impaired under state criteria; the substantial losses in aquatic insect biodiversity and increases in salinity is linked to sulfates and other pollutants in runoff from mines often located miles upstream

  • Students and scientists gather in Singapore to discuss water problem

    International university students and water experts have converged at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to foster an intellectual and research community on a scarce natural resource — water

  • New sensors detect contaminants in water

    Many organic contaminants in the air and in drinking water need to be detected at very low-level concentrations; researchers have investigated the use of graphene oxide films in which the semiconductor titanium dioxide (TiO2) and metal nanoparticles are deposited on opposite sides of the graphene surface

  • Water for central Everglades essential for reversing ecosystem's decline

    Twelve years into a $13.5billion state and federal effort to save the Florida Everglades, little progress has been made in restoring the core of the ecosystem, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council; expedited restoration projects that improve the quality and amount of water in this area are necessary to reverse ongoing declines