As environmental engineers, invasive caterpillars can have remarkable effects on water quality and soil conditions. But from a climate perspective they’re pretty much a nuisance.
Lake Windermere, in England’s Lake District, experiences different mixing processes in its water column.
BarnyZ/Flickr
The growing frequency of climate extremes affected human health and caused wide-scale damages to the ecosystems that people depend upon, including agriculture, fisheries and freshwater.
The Supreme Court recently dealt defeat to Florida in its 20-year legal battle with Georgia over river water. Other interstate water contests loom, but there are no sure winners in these lawsuits.
The water that replenishes groundwater, rivers and lakes is under threat from climate change, pollution and aging infrastructure.
Some lakes in the Arctic are expanding and others are disappearing as permafrost thaws.
This lake north of Inuvik, N.W.T., is expanding as the ice wedges (darker lines leading away from the lake) around this lake melt and the ground subsides.
(Philip Marsh)
Hundreds of thousands of lakes, rivers and streams in the Arctic exist only because of the permafrost that lies beneath them. The warming Arctic threatens to change that.
A lake in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.
Sergey Pesterev/Unsplash
Why did Earth’s climate rapidly cool 12,800 years ago? Evidence is mounting that a comet or asteroid collision is to blame, with new support coming from the bottom of a South Carolina lake.
Freshwater fish are suffering as drought becomes more common and severe. Whether they survive will depend on how governments manage rivers and lakes, and on taking action against climate change.
There are 130 billion gallons of water in Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota, and now, trillions of spiny water fleas.
Corey Coyle/Wikimedia
It’s cheaper to prevent biological invasions than to react after they happen. But it’s hard to detect invaders while there are still just a few of them. Knowing when and where to look can help.
Spawning sockeye salmon make their way up the Adams River near Chase, B.C.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Roughly 10,000 tons of plastic enter the Great Lakes every year, and scientists want to know where it ends up. There are some parallels to ocean plastics, but also important differences.