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Water
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
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Disasters
The use of a more streamlined process to recycle wastewater could have saved Brisbane from severe flooding in 2011 and mitigated recent flood risks in NSW, a leading water expert says
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Water
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
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Water shortages
Only nine states in the United States have taken comprehensive steps to address their vulnerabilities to the water-related consequences of changes in climate — rainfall events which increase flooding risks to property and health change, and drought conditions which threaten supply for municipalities, agriculture, and industries — while twenty-nine states are unprepared for growing water threats to their economies and public health
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Water
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
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Water
Researchers begin developing prototype device for harvesting energy and clean drinking water from human waste; the device proposal beat more than 2,000 other proposals to receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
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Water
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
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Water
Thousands of people die each year in developing countries from drinking arsenic-contaminated water; researchers develop inexpensive filters made from the modified protein (keratin) in poultry feathers to remove arsenic from drinking water
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Water
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
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Water
President Obama’s latest proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 cuts $105 million from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) budget, primarily from funds aimed at treating wastewater and drinking water
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Water
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
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Water
Simply collecting rainwater could save U.S. residents millions of dollars each year on their water bills and drastically cut down on water consumption; a new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council examined the potential cost-savings in eight U.S. cities and found that residents could collectively save $90 million or more annually
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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
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Water
A recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study found that groundwater in aquifers on the East Coast and in the Central United States has the highest risk of contamination from radium, a naturally occurring radioactive element and known carcinogen
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Water
Photocatalysis involves the acceleration of chemical reactions using the power of light; researchers experiment with different types of photocatalysts to reduce nitrates in water
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Infrastructure protection
A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the bulk of U.S. critical infrastructure is inadequately protected as operators lack a coherent set of guidelines
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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
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Water
Biologists and bioengineers at UC San Diego have created a living neon sign composed of millions of bacterial cells that periodically fluoresce in unison like blinking light bulbs; because bacteria are sensitive to many kinds of environmental pollutants and organisms, the scientists believe this approach could be used to design low cost bacterial biosensors capable of detecting an array of heavy metal pollutants and disease-causing organisms
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Water
Intensive agriculture practices developed during the past century have helped improve food security for many people but have also added to nitrate pollution in surface and ground waters
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Water
Engineers at Brown University have developed a system that cleanly and efficiently removes trace heavy metals from water; in experiments, the researchers showed the system reduced cadmium, copper, and nickel concentrations, returning contaminated water to near or below federally acceptable standards; the technique is scalable and has viable commercial applications, especially in the environmental remediation and metal recovery fields
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