Archive News

August 16, 2018Fluoride occurs naturally in groundwater. In small amounts, this is usually not a problem, but in India the concentration in many places exceeds the threshold at which is starts to present a health hazard. According to estimates by Eawag researchers, based on new computer models, more than a hundred million people are affected.

July 26, 2018Roy Brouwer was invited to be part of a panel discussion during the 2018 session of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York Mid-July. Brouwer is Executive Director of the Water Institute and Professor of Economics at the University of Waterloo (Canada) and visiting Professor at Eawag.

June 1, 2018Southerly countries are rich in genetic resources. The companies that exploit this natural treasure commercially are very often from the northern, developed world, however. The Nagoya Protocol was created in order to ensure fair use of genetic resources and appropriate compensation. 

May 24, 2018Payment via mobile, replacement parts made on a 3D-printer, error messages via NFC-tag – Eawag doctoral student Caroline Saul has found some remarkable innovations in companies that market container toilets in developing countries. She sees great potential in making such technologies more widely available.

May 16, 2018Ultrafiltration is one of the techniques currently used for disinfecting water – viruses and bacteria are reliably retained by a membrane with extremely small pores. For more than ten years, Eawag has successfully been carrying out research to determine how this method can function using the effect of gravity on water instead of high pressure, cleaning and chemicals. These new discoveries are being applied in increasing numbers of ways. In addition to decentralised drinking water purification, Eawag is now researching uses in areas such as greywater recycling and pre-treatment of seawater for desalination.

April 27, 2018This April, Sandec and its partners hosted two national workshops on small-scale sanitation – one in New Delhi, India and one in Kathmandu, Nepal. The aim of the workshops was to discuss the results of two years of field research with participants from government, utilities, academia, donors, the private sector and NGOs.

April 25, 2018Researchers of the Eawag department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development (Sandec) and ETH Zurich are developing a method to produce animal feed from biowaste products. This is one of 14 projects in the Engineering for Development programme funded by the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development over the past decade and entering its next 5-year cycle.

April 10, 2018Faced with polluted river water, rural communities or aid agencies often drill groundwater wells to obtain water supplies. But data collected systematically for the first time in the Amazon basin show that this “solution” can create new problems: the groundwater may contain elevated concentrations of arsenic, manganese and aluminium – up to 70 times over the recommended limit in the case of arsenic, and up to 15 times for manganese.

February 22, 2018The earth’s water supply is changing because of global warming: the ratio of precipitation to evaporation is sinking, and additional arid zones may emerge. The speed at which this development is likely to take place has been analysed by an international team including Eawag researchers. 

January 24, 2018A research team from the Surface Waters Research and Management Department is investigating the earliest traces of human life in the tropical Pacific. In July 2017, the team undertook an expedition to Vanuatu in Melanesia. The researchers took sediment cores from the lakes and marshes on seven islands in order to test these for indications of the earliest human activities.