• Florida City to inject treated sewage directly into underground aquifer

    Florida’s Biscayne Aquifer has begun to run low and communities are exploring alternative sources of water as well as methods to stretch existing sources; the city of Pembroke Pines plans to inject treated sewage water 60 to 200 feet below ground directly into underground aquifers rather than use the existing practice of pumping treated water into nearby wetlands, lakes, or fields, where it will slowly trickle down into the aquifer over several months or years

  • Wastewater treatment lowers pathogen levels

    New analysis shows that pathogens levels in municipal water have dropped since the implementation of federal regulations on treating sewage in 1993; these treatment guidelines have proven to be extremely effective with 94 percent to 99 percent of all pathogens in biosolids eliminated after wastewater treatment

  • China to step up efforts to control Mother Nature

    China is facing increasingly sever water shortages; the Chinese government is expanding it activities to combat extreme weather such as droughts, exploring airborne water resources, bringing water from he sea inland, and other measures to secure stable water supplies for cities, industry and agriculture

  • Seaweed: the new trend in water purification

    UConn biologist Charles Yarish is turning his enthusiasm for seaweed into a new system for cleaning up waterways; Yarish’s most recent endeavor will use seaweeds to clean up pollution from human sources, as well as waste from fish and even people; this approach, dubbed extractive aquaculture or bioextraction, promises to use the physiological properties of seaweeds and other organisms to clean up excess nutrients in polluted areas, making them healthier, more productive, and more economically viable

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  • Freshwater sustainability challenges shared by Southwest and Southeast

    Twenty-five years ago, environmentalist Marc Reisner published Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, which predicted that water resources in the West would be unable to support the growing demand of cities, agriculture, new research offers new support for most of Reisner’s conclusions, using data and methods unavailable to him in 1986

  • Desalinating water, producing hydrogen, treating wastewater -- simultaneously

    Fresh water and reusable energy: humans are on a constant hunt for a sustainable supply of both; trouble is, water purification requires a lot of energy, while utility companies need large amounts of water for energy production; researchers from the University of Colorado Denver College of Engineering and Applied Science may have discovered an answer

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  • Haiti's escalating crises come down to lack of clean water

    Haiti’s corrupt and indifferent government has done little to improve water and sanitation since a 12 January earthquake, making it likely that the cholera epidemic there will continue to spread; even before the quake, more than a third of Haitians lacked access to clean water; now, more than two-thirds of Haitians have no access to clean water; less than one-fifth of the population has access to a simple latrine or toilet

  • Nature's desalination: bacteria turn salty water fresh

    The growing global shortage of water has led to a growing interest in desalination to produce fresh water from seas and estuaries; conventional desalination plants, however, consume large amounts of energy; the solution: a bug-powered desalination cell that takes salt out of seawater

  • One in five global businesses affected by growing water shortages

    Experts say that by 2030 global water demand would outstrip supply by 40 percent; a new survey reveals that we do not have to wait that long: drought, shortages, flooding, and rising prices are already damaging companies in water-intensive industries

  • China to push sea water thousands of miles inland

    Chinese officials say they have a found a solution to uninhabitable deserts of Xinjiang in west china: pump raw sea water thousands of miles from the coast to fill Xinjiang’s dried-up salt lakes and desert basins in the hope that it will evaporate and encourage rainfall over drought-stricken areas of northern and northwestern China; the sea water would be carried through a pipeline made of plastic and fiberglass; water experts have condemned the proposal

  • Crumbling water infrastructure needs investment boost

    Water pipes and treatment systems in the United States are in a sorry state, but nearly two-thirds of voters and just over half of businesses would be willing to pay more for their water to ensure its quality and availability; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that at the current rate of investment, the funding gap for water infrastructure could grow to as much as $224 billion by 2022

  • Large parts of the world are drying up

    The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including major portions of Australia, Africa, and South America, have been drying up in the past decade as a result of intensified “evapotranspiration” — the movement of water from the land to the atmosphere

  • Worldwide groundwater depletion rate accelerating

    In recent decades, the rate at which humans worldwide are pumping dry the vast underground stores of water that billions depend on has more than doubled; if water was siphoned from the Great Lakes as rapidly as water is pumped out of underground reservoirs, the Great Lakes would go bone-dry in around 80 years

  • Coal waste has contaminated water in 34 states

    Coal-waste disposal sites have contaminated drinking and surface water in 34 states; the sites released pollutants such as arsenic, selenium, lead and chromium into water sources on which both humans and farm animals depend; there could be a bigger problem yet: large coal ash-generating states like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, and Tennessee, require no monitoring by law at coal ash ponds, so the pollution of water by coal ash is not even monitored

  • World Bank report says 700 million people in 43 countries are under "water stress"

    More than 700 million people in 43 countries are under “water stress,” according to a new World Bank report; water-related projects in developing countries now account for more than a third of the World Bank’s projects