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.

August 15, 2018Eawag has studied how various pumped-storage hydropower scenarios affect temperature and water quality in the waterbodies concerned. In the case of Sihlsee, which serves as a reservoir for the SBB Etzelwerk plant, the question of withdrawal depth was found to be crucially important. The study also highlighted the fact that the assessment of environmental impacts largely depends on the definition of the reference state: whereas in natural lakes water is discharged from the surface, in reservoirs it is withdrawn from the lower layer. The environmental and aesthetic impacts of pumped-storage operations in the riparian zone were not examined in this study.

August 10, 2018Commitment to teaching: Eawag scientist Bernhard Wehrli took over the post of Director of Studies in Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich on August 1, 2018.

August 9, 2018The development of novel, less costly analytical methods is of crucial importance in addressing the issue of micropollutants in surface waters. This was one of the main goals of EDA-EMERGE, an EU-funded programme in which Eawag also participated.

August 6, 2018Lagoons are valuable natural habitats as well as being good for tourism. In the case of the “Mar Menor” in the Spanish province of Murcia, however, such large quantities of nutrients are entering the unique ecosystem via the groundwater that algal blooms are making swimming impossible. Working together with Eawag, Spanish researchers have been modelling the underground water flows in order to develop better cultivation and water management scenarios.

August 2, 2018Eawag, the ETH Zurich and the University of Bern have developed a new instrument: the “Combined Vacuum Crushing and Sieving System” (CVCS). This device makes possible the extraction of minute water and noble gas inclusions that are thousands of years old from the pores of minerals in caves, without distortion by the present atmosphere.

July 27, 2018Knowledge brokering is a technical term used to describe activities to facilitate mutual learning between researchers, practitioners and policy makers. While frameworks exist for assessing academic impact, few equivalent tools are available for assessing the contributions of knowledge brokers at the interface between research, policy and practice. 

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.

July 26, 2018Thin mulch films made of polyethylene are used in agriculture in numerous countries, where they cause extensive soil contamination. Researchers at ETH Zurich and Eawag have now identified an alternative: films made of the polymer PBAT biodegrade in soils. 

July 19, 2018Thanks to Copernicus – the EU Earth Observation Programme initiated in 2014 – environmental researchers now have access to vast amounts of high-quality satellite data. As this is also invaluable for aquatic research, Eawag is currently expanding its capacity in the area of remote sensing.