New regulations will allow oilsands companies to release 1.3 trillion litres of liquid waste into the Athabasca River in 2022. A new technology could clean the wastewater before it's let go.
A long-awaited NZ$700 million package to clean up New Zealand's rivers and lakes has disappointed some of the government's expert advisers – especially a delay on setting clear pollution limits.
Riverside forests are important for freshwater ecosystem
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Population growth and attendant human activities are destroying a freshwater ecosystem.
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 harmful algal bloom in the western basin of Lake Erie in August 2017.
(NOAA/Aerial Associates Photography, Inc. by Zachary Haslick/flickr)
The salt in the sea has built up over billions of years – but it wouldn't have got there without freshwater rivers and streams.
The giant freshwater prawn is native to the Indo-West Pacific from northwest India to Vietnam, Philippines, New Guinea and northern Australia. It has been introduced into many countries for aquaculture.
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Entire populations of prawn 'super-females' are now being commercially distributed. The science behind this continues to advance and could have a far-reaching impact on both humans and animals.
A woman draws water from a well in Wereta, Ethiopia.
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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.
Spawning sockeye salmon make their way up the Adams River near Chase, B.C.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been politically fraught and mired in scandal. But environmental monitoring suggests that the health of the rivers is indeed improving – even if it will take decades.
Researchers are finding plastics in fish in freshwater ecosystems.
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Recent research shows that US rivers are becoming saltier and more alkaline. Salt pollution threatens drinking water supplies and freshwater ecosystems, but there is no broad system for regulating it.
Lake Tarawera, seen from its outlet, has excellent but declining water quality.
Troy Baisden
The ecological health of New Zealand's lowland rivers and lakes is in decline, but principles borrowed from drinking water safety could help reverse the degradation.