Did the Green Revolution, which brought high-tech agriculture to developing nations in the 1960s, prevent famine? Recent research takes a much more skeptical view.
New homes under construction in Rochester, Kent.
Flyby Photography/Shutterstock
Conventional agriculture offers farmers few choices about which crops to grow or how to raise them. A new approach uses computing to construct better strategies with lower environmental impacts.
Seagrass meadows are an important part of the UK’s marine environment.
Benjamin Jones/Project Seagrass
The tiny organisms that cause harmful blooms of algae can have a big impact on your trip to the shore. A toxicologist explains what causes these events and how to keep people and pets safe.
Sargassum seaweed started washing up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in mid-March 2023.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Scientists are predicting a record sargassum bloom in 2023. It’s already starting to wash up on beaches in Florida and the Caribbean and cause a stink.
Shall I order the chicken, or the salmon? What does the science say about reducing pressure on the environment? When you take a big-picture view, the results can be surprising.
A raccoon with a fish at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, Fla.
Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The US Supreme Court opens its 2022-2023 term with a case that could greatly reduce federal protection for wetlands. Here is what makes these ecosystems valuable.
Satellite photo of an algal bloom in western Lake Erie, July 28, 2015.
NASA Earth Observatory
Donald Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Donald Scavia, University of Michigan
Nutrient pollution fouls lakes and bays with algae, killing fish and threatening public health. Progress curbing it has been slow, mainly because of farm pollution.
Paul and Becky Rogers converted 14 acres of land in Kent County, Mich. to habitat that supports pollinators, songbirds and wildlife.
USDA/Flickr
New research shows that one-third of yearly nitrogen runoff from Midwest farms to the Gulf of Mexico occurs during a few heavy rainstorms. New fertilizing schedules could reduce nitrogen pollution.
Aniel Arruebarenna, a team member from the Centro de Estudios Ambientales de Cienfuegos, prepares to collect flow measurements.
Joshua Brown/University of Vermont
Warmer waters, heavier storms and nutrient pollution are a triple threat to Great Lakes cities’ drinking water. The solution: Cutting nutrient releases and installing systems to filter runoff.
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.
Charter boat Capt. Dave Spangler holds a sample of algae from Maumee Bay in Lake Erie, Sept. 15, 2017.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File
Scientists are predicting major algae blooms in Lake Erie and large dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico this summer. Nutrient pollution from industrial corn farming is a major driver.
Biscuit Brook, a popular fly fishing spot in New York’s Catskill Mountains.
Ellen Wohl
The Trump administration wants to end federal protection under the Clean Water Act for many small streams and wetlands. But as a geoscientist explains, these are critical parts of large river systems.
Applying nitrogen fertilizer to corn at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, a research site in Michigan.
NSF
Fertilizer is a key source of nitrogen pollution which fouls air and water worldwide. Current regulations target farmers, but focusing on producers could spur them to develop greener products.
Surgeonfish on a reef in the Maldives.
Uxbona/Wikimedia
Drastic oxygen losses in the world’s oceans millions of years ago coincided with mass extinctions. Scientists see this as a warning about how climate change could affect oceans today.
Algae cover the surface of the Caloosahatchee River at the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam, July 12, 2018, in Alva, Florida.
AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Red tide and a blue-green algae outbreak are fouling hundreds of miles of coast, killing fish and driving tourists away from beaches. Some of the causes are natural, but human actions play a big role.
Blooms of algae, like this growth in 2015 in Lake St. Clair between Michigan and Ontario, promote the formation of dead zones.
NASA Earth Observatory
Scientists have mapped a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Oman, without enough oxygen in the water to support life. This Speed Read explains why dead zones form in waters around the world.