Archive News

January 19, 2021The Ecotox Centre presents a new strategy to assess the quality of sediments. Sediments are of great significance in water protection.

January 14, 2021Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) treatment of organic waste offers a sustainable and economic solution to the need for organic waste management in Indonesia.

January 6, 2021Each year, around 130 kilograms of mercury flow into Swiss wastewater treatment plants, which filter out the lion’s share from the waste water. This is shown by a survey of almost thirty wastewater treatment plants conducted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) and the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN).

December 17, 2020Europe still has barely any downstream passage facilities that guide fish past the turbines of run-of-river power stations unharmed. Now, an interdisciplinary team of engineers from ETH Zurich and fish biologists from Eawag have developed a rack that uses pressure and flow differences to guide fish out of the main flow and into the safe fish passage. Laboratory tests have shown that the system, which works by influencing fish behaviour, is particularly effective for cyprinid fish and salmon parr.

December 11, 2020The ETH Zurich appoints biologist Kristin Schirmer, head of the Environmental Toxicology department of Eawag, as titular professor.

December 11, 2020The ETH-Board appoints Carsten Schubert as a new member of the Directorate of Eawag, the aquatic research institute.

December 7, 2020Matthew Moy de Vitry has been awarded the ETH Zurich Otto Jaag Water Protection Prize for his doctoral thesis “Public surveillance and the future of urban pluvial flood modelling”.

December 4, 2020The mobile and automated MS2field mass spectrometer allows measurements to be taken of harmful substances in surface waters with high temporal resolution. The initial measurements using the device are revealing the extent to which peak concentrations of pesticides, for example, have been underestimated by traditional methods.

December 4, 2020The University of Bern has appointed the political scientist Manuel Fischer from the Eawag Department of Environmental Social Sciences (ESS) as titular professor.

December 1, 2020The analysis of DNA fragments and their assignment to individual species – an increasingly well‑established approach – is transforming biodiversity assessment. Samples collected from waterbodies permit rapid biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems. However, environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is not without pitfalls. For this reason, guidelines for practitioners have now been developed by a group of experts – including Eawag scientists – coordinated by the Federal Office for the Environment. These guidelines, covering the whole process from sampling to data interpretation, should help to ensure that eDNA applications produce reliable results.