Scaling up the production of biofuels made from algae to meet at least 5 percent — approximately thirty-nine billion liters — of U.S. transportation fuel needs would place unsustainable demands on energy, water, and nutrients, says a new report from the National Research Council; these concerns, however, are not a definitive barrier for future production, and innovations that would require research and development could help realize algal biofuels’ full potential

Five Chinese dams on the Mekong River’s upper portions have caused rapid changes in water level, and other adverse effects, downstream, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos, where millions of people rely on the river for water, food, and transportation

Water is a commodity, and water rights can be freely traded in an open market. Proponents of the free market approach argue that it leads to the most efficient allocation of water resources, as it would for any other commodity

According to the July 2011 census, more than thirty-seven million people live in California, increasing the pressure on the state’s water sources; desalinating sea water as a solution to the scarcity of fresh water is not a new technology — it has been around for more than four decades — but it has more recently been considered as a way to address California’s chronic, and growing, water shortage; a closer examination of the technology and its cost has cooled the initial enthusiasm for it

When mercury is dumped into rivers and lakes, the toxic heavy metal can end up in the fish we eat and the water we drink; to help protect consumers from the diseases and conditions associated with mercury, researchers have developed a nanoparticle system that is sensitive enough to detect even the smallest levels of heavy metals in our water and fish

Diarrheal disease is the second-leading cause of death in children under five years old — killing as many as 1.5 million children worldwide every year; these startling statistics from the World Health Organization (2009) point to the reason why a group of undergraduate students from Arizona State University is working to develop a low-cost biosensor — a simple device that would detect contaminated drinking water

Researchers have embarked on 4-year federal research effort to evaluate freshwater sustainability across the southern United States and develop policy recommendations on what can be done to make the best use of water supplies in the face of population growth and the effects of climate change over the next ten to thirty years

Most of the bacteria that remain in drinking water when it gets to the tap can be traced to filters used in the water treatment process, rather than to the aquifers or rivers where they originated; the findings could open the door to more sustainable water treatment processes that use fewer chemicals and, as a result, produce lower levels of byproducts that may pose health risks; eventually, the work could enable engineers to control the types of microbes in drinking water to improve human health

Researchers from Loughborough University, located in Leicestershire, United Kingdom , won second prize in the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge; their toilet uses a process called Continuous Thermal Hydrocarbonization which kills all pathogens to create safe to handle, valuable material and uses power from heat generated during processing