Archive News

February 10, 2022Eawag researchers have won a competition organised by Britain’s National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3R). The prize money is awarded for use in research to develop technologies to replace animal testing.

February 9, 2022Wastewater treatment plants are ‘hotspots’ for antibiotic resistance genes and bacteria but sewer overflows exacerbate the problem by disseminating them into rivers. Researchers at Eawag suggest ways to minimise these effects.

February 8, 2022Mining can have serious consequences for nature and the health of the population in countries of the Global South, where environmental laws are often only inconsistently implemented. In Hwange, in western Zimbabwe, people have been fighting water pollution from coal mining for years. But they were powerless against the operators – until doctoral student Désirée Ruppen launched a citizen science project in 2018.

January 28, 2022A river with chemically polluted sediments at its bottom is missing a crucial habitat. However, until now there has been no uniform method for monitoring the quality of sediments. On behalf of the Federal Office for the Environment, experts from the Ecotox Centre and Eawag have now developed a proposal for this.

January 20, 2022Switzerland has around 800 municipal wastewater treatment plants. A recent study by Eawag researchers reveals the burden these plants place on the climate, and explores how emissions of climate-damaging nitrous oxide can be reduced.

January 18, 2022Eawag researchers investigated this question in two extensive pilot studies at the Furt-Bülach and Glarus wastewater treatment plants. The findings: Granular activated carbon filtration efficiently removes micropollutants, is technically feasible and is an equal alternative to other processes.

January 12, 2022All living organisms that respire have to get rid of electrons. In oxygen-free environments, microorganisms deploy special molecules which act as extracellular electron shuttles to transfer the electrons from cells to minerals. A group of researchers has now discovered what determines the electron transfer efficiency of these “taxi” cars: the energy differences of the transported electrons.

January 4, 2022The honourable Natural Research Society of Zurich has just published its 224th New Year's Bulletin. It is devoted entirely to the eight square kilometre Greifensee, which Eawag is also researching intensively.

December 7, 2021With around 200 pictures and texts, the new Water Timeline takes you through 200 years of the eventful history of Swiss water protection. It aims to show how shifts towards more sustainable management of natural resources can be shaped. 

November 22, 2021ETH Zurich has awarded the Otto Jaag Water Protection Prize to environmental engineer Elisa Calamita for her doctoral thesis “Modelling the effects of large dams on water quality in tropical rivers.” The price honours outstanding dissertations and master theses from ETH Zurich in the field of water protection and hydrology.