Several hundreds of millions of people in Southeast Asia depend, to varying degrees, on the freshwater reservoirs of the Himalayan glaciers; it is thus important to detect the potential impact of climate changes on the Himalayan glaciers at an early stage; together with international researchers, glaciologists from the University of Zurich now show that the glaciers in the Himalayas are declining less rapidly than was previously thought; the scientists, however, see major hazard potential from outbursts of glacial lakes

The Arizona-Sonora region has been called the front line of ongoing climate change, with global climate models projecting severe precipitation decreases and temperature increases coupled with vulnerability from urbanization, industrialization and agricultural intensification

Simultaneously attaining a reliable water supply for California and protecting and rehabilitating its Bay-Delta ecosystem cannot be realized until better planning can identify how trade-offs between these two goals will be managed when water is limited

As precipitation becomes less frequent due to climate change, lake and reservoir levels will drop and people will increasingly turn to groundwater for agricultural, industrial, and drinking water needs; the resource accounts for nearly half of all drinking water worldwide, but recharges at a much slower rate than aboveground water sources and in many cases is nonrenewable

More than 1 in 3 counties in the United States could face a “high” or “extreme” risk of water shortages due to climate change by the middle of the twenty-first century; 7 in 10 of the more than 3,100 U.S. counties could face “some” risk of shortages of fresh water for drinking, farming, and other uses

Decontaminating polluted waste water costs millions, but a new discovery by scientists at the University of Brighton could result in huge savings as well as delivering safer, cleaner water

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) involves the high-pressure injection of water, sand and chemicals into a shale seam, which causes the rock to shatter, releasing natural gas; preliminary findings from a study on the use of hydraulic fracturing in shale gas development suggest no direct link to reports of groundwater contamination

Photocatalysis involves the acceleration of chemical reactions using the power of light; researchers experiment with different types of photocatalysts to reduce nitrates in water

The UN estimates that about 1.1 billion people currently lack access to safe water; forecasts suggest that freshwater may become the “oil” of the twenty-first century — expensive, scarce, and the cause of geo-political conflicts; scientists show a new method for purifying water