Archive News

September 23, 2020Air quality in Switzerland has improved but is still not good enough. To continue the monitoring of air pollutants which has taken place for many years in Dübendorf (ZH), today  federal government has opened a new station as part of its National Air Pollution Monitoring Network (NABEL) on the Empa-Eawag-campus.

September 18, 2020Adaptation to warmer environmental conditions may increase the resistance of viruses, making them harder to be inactivated. This is the finding of a new study involving Eawag. Global warming could therefore make it more difficult to combat viruses.

September 10, 2020Until recently, researchers assumed that Switzerland had around 20 native species of amphipods. Now, a project by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) and the University of Zurich has revealed that there are actually more than 40. It is always worth taking a closer look, because we can only protect the things that we know exist.

September 8, 2020Process Engineer Adriano Joss from Eawag water research institute has been working for many years on wastewater treatment plants and the removal of micropollutants from water. Together with Ralf Kägi, Head of the Eawag Particle Laboratory, he has compiled the current status of knowledge on microplastics. In an interview, he presents the most important findings. We have recently posted detailed information on the website “Microplastics in the environment”.

September 2, 2020Researchers from Agroscope, Eawag, University of Bern and ETH have developed a method for the comprehensive detection of organic pollutant residues in soils and sediments. Initial results show that, in addition to known substances, there are also a number of substances detected for the first time.

August 28, 2020Nature Sustainability has just published a review article on possible risks that COVID-19 viruses could cause in wastewater. Prof Eberhard Morgenroth (Head of the Eawag Department of Process Engineering) is a co-author of the review. We asked him five questions.

August 26, 2020Using genomic analyses of 100 cichlid species, scientists from Eawag and the University Bern, together with co-workers in Australia, the UK, Tanzania, Uganda and the US, have investigated the striking variation observed in cichlid fish speciation rates. Their findings show that exchanges of genetic variants between existing species dramatically accelerate the development of new species – given favourable ecological conditions.

August 17, 2020Blue-green algae are very common both in the water and on land. Sporadically, they occur in lakes on the surface in such large numbers that one speaks of a bloom. Because there are species that can produce toxic substances, many questions arise.

July 28, 2020One of the heavy metals naturally present in soils is thallium. Since little is known about its environmental behaviour, a research group at Eawag has been studying this metal in detail.

July 20, 2020The Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force has been mandated by various federal agencies to act as a national scientific advisory body in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current deputy head Martin Ackermann, head of Eawag’s Environmental Microbiology Division and ETH Professor of Ecology of Microbial Systems, will take over as head of the task force from 1 August 2020.