A new report on New Zealand’s lakes and rivers confirms that many freshwater ecosystems are in decline and warns that climate change will exacerbate existing threats.
Researchers use Atlantic mackerel for bait on long-lining fishing sampling expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico..
C-IMAGE Consortium
The Deepwater Horizon oil disaster catalyzed a decade of research on oil contamination in the Gulf of Mexico, from surface waters to the seabed, with surprising findings.
Collecting water from a street pump in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Jan. 13, 2020.
Mehedi Hasan/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Water is essential for health, economic well-being and social equity, but too many people around the world still don’t have access to clean drinking water and sanitation.
Mark Ruffalo plays corporate defence attorney Robert Bilott in Dark Waters (2020).
Focus Features
PFAS have been used in everything from coffee cups to frying pans. But they’re toxic, and accumulating in the environment.
The January 2019 collapse of a dam in Brumadinho, Brazil, sent mining tailings and mud over the landscape for miles, destroying this bridge and killing 300 people.
Andre Penner/AP
Dams built to hold enormous quantities of toxic mining waste have a long history of spills. Decisions in the Pacific Northwest threaten three free-flowing rivers there.
Mayflies and stone flies are extremely vulnerable to water pollution, which has implications for the larger food chain.
Water purification at a modern urban wastewater treatment plant involves removing undesirable chemicals, suspended solids and gases from contaminated water.
arhendrix/Shutterstock.com
The solids from wastewater plants are usually dumped into landfills because they are contaminated with heavy metals. Now there is a way to remove the metals so the waste can be used as fertilizer.
The Bingham Canyon open-pit copper mine in Utah has operated since 1903.
David Guthrie/Flickr
Hans Paerl, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
As climate change speeds up tropical storm cycles, rivers and bays have less time to process nutrients and pollutants that wash into them after each event.
A helicopter view of Bait Reef in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
Justin Blank/AAP
We all know that climate change is hurting the Great Barrier Reef. But scores of other less-publicised threats also threaten the future of the natural wonder.
A severe blue-green algae bloom spreads across western Lake Erie on July 30, 2019.
NASA Earth Observatory
Should lakes, rivers and other resources have legal rights? New Zealand, Ecuador and other countries have taken this step. Now Toledo, Ohio is a US test case.
After years of delay, the New Zealand government is pushing ahead on a national plan to clean up the nation’s lakes, rivers and wetlands.
from www.shutterstock.com
A proposed plan to clean up New Zealand’s waterways draws clear limits on the expansion of dairy farming and irrigation, as well as on the use of nitrogen fertiliser in some key areas.
Bores with high iron content can be a haven for disease-causing bacteria.
Mirjam Kaestli
Many remote communities in Australia’s north rely on bore water. But a new microbiology analysis suggests that the chemistry of untreated water can allow disease-causing bacteria to grow unchecked.
Bottled water distribution in Glenwood, Iowa, where massive spring flooding along the Missouri River disrupted drinking water treatment, April 3, 2019.
AP Photo/Nati Harnik
Freshwater data in the latest report on the state of New Zealand’s environment suggest improvements in water quality are possible but many gaps in understanding remain.
Phytoremediation uses plants to clean up toxic pollutants.
Jovana Pantovic/Shutterstock
Gas mining is expanding across Australia, and has been touted as part of the answer to cutting emissions. But there is evidence that this rollout will pose significant health and environmental risks.
Aeration tanks at the Oaks wastewater treatment plant in New Providence, Penn.
Montgomery County Planning Commission
The ‘used water’ that flows from our showers, dishwashers and toilets isn’t a waste to engineers – it contains valuable materials. The challenge is recovering them and turning them into products.