April 8, 2020Martijn Kuller is part of the FANFAR Horizon 2020 Project, funded by the EU, to address flood challenges in West Africa. Flooding is a rapidly growing concern in this part of the world, in recent years several floods have occurred with severe consequences. In an interview, Martijn talks about his experiences in establishing an early warning system for West Africa.
April 7, 2020The spatial requirements for surface waters specified in the Waters Protection Act represent the absolute minimum required to safeguard their ecological functions. The space provided along small streams is of particular importance, as material flows between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are not dependent on the width of the watercourse. This is shown by Eawag’s own investigations – and by a review of available studies, which was cited by the Federal Supreme Court in a recent ruling.
April 3, 2020 Researchers want to make use of the fact that coronaviruses excreted by infected individuals can be found in wastewater. If the viruses can be detected successfully, this may provide a much faster way of spotting a wave of infections than via testing of symptomatic individuals. To find out more, we interviewed Eawag researcher Christoph Ort.
March 31, 2020Using a simple but ingenious strategy, a research team has successfully demonstrated how water quality downstream of wastewater treatment plants is influenced by a single pharmaceutical manufacturing site: as variations in the concentrations of compounds over time are dependent on production cycles, it is possible to distinguish between industrial and household emissions – even a long way downstream.
March 24, 2020Contaminated waste water often flows into rivers and streams after heavy rains. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thus also enter the waters. Eawag is researching exactly which ones and in what amounts as part of a national research programme.
March 19, 2020The theme to this year’s UNESCO World Water Day is “Water and Climate Change”. Environmental scientist Martin Schmid, who is Head of the Eawag Group Applied System Analysis in the Surface Waters Department, talks about how climate change is impacting on waterbodies in Switzerland.
March 13, 2020The ETH Board is strengthening the interdisciplinary biodiversity research of WSL and Eawag in order to find answers to the urgent social challenges of species loss as quickly as possible.
March 12, 2020Host and parasites are often engaged in an evolutionary arms race. Researchers at Eawag have intervened in this warring relationship and demonstrated how it can be used to improve biological pest control.
March 10, 2020In the project "LeCo - "Legionella control in buildings", a number of research groups have joined to tackle the legionella issue in a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary research project. Project leader Frederik Hammes explains why this is so important.
March 3, 2020Inhalation of legionella bacteria – which thrive in warm water – can cause illness: in a new project, an Eawag-led multidisciplinary research team is investigating how the risks associated with these bacteria can best be managed.
