Last changed: 06.04.2022Mariane, what is your doctoral thesis about? In sewage treatment plants, sensors are usually maintained regularly. Due to high sensor maintenance costs on-site wastewater treatment plants are mostly n
Last changed: 06.04.2022Organisms exposed to challenging environments face evolutionary pressure to adapt, which could lead to modifications in a variety of traits, such as morphology, physiology and behaviour. Katja Räsänen
Last changed: 06.04.2022Environmental problems are generally complex, and the ecological processes and actors involved are often closely interlinked. Social-ecological networks make it possible to untangle such complex relat
Last changed: 06.04.2022The live images from the Aquascope reveal an amazing underwater world. Lake Greifen is home to a smorgasbord of wonderful creatures – star-shaped, cylindrical, horned or extravagantly coiffed. But as
Last changed: 06.04.2022Rain enables crops to grow, but it also causes the run-off of pesticides to rivers and streams. Concentrations of these substances in surface waters can be monitored by means of regular sampling. Howe
Last changed: 06.04.2022Parasitic wasps act as biological weapons against aphids in pest control. With the help of symbionts, however, some aphids try to defend themselves against the attacks. The struggle between these inse
Last changed: 06.04.2022The COVID-19 pandemic was unimaginable for many and has given rise to the worst kind of conspiracy theories. For a large number of researchers, however, a widespread epidemic came as no surprise. In e
Last changed: 06.04.2022The rock laboratory on the Grimsel Pass in the Bernese Oberland lies 400 metres deep in the mountain. There, geophysicists from the ETH Zurich have installed an experimental setup with which they agit
Last changed: 06.04.2022In several eastern African lakes, an immense variety of cichlid species evolved within just a few thousand years. The various species occupy many different ecological niches. While up to 50 cichlid sp
Last changed: 06.04.2022Catherine and Florian, the theme of the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) is ”Our solutions are in nature”. What does that mean from your point of view? Catherine: The theme emphasizes
Last changed: 06.04.2022A fundamental characteristic of ecological communities is that small animals are more abundant than large ones. These “ecological pyramids” are found in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. Depending
Last changed: 06.04.2022Today, one third of the world’s population obtains its drinking water and water for irrigation from groundwater reserves. Global population growth and water scarcity due to climate change mean that th
Last changed: 07.04.2022In Switzerland, fresh drinking water springs from the tap whenever it is needed. After use, it flows through the sewage system into the central wastewater treatment plants, where it is cleaned and rei
Last changed: 07.04.2022Canalisation, sewage disposal and hydropower exploitation – rivers are among the most heavily impacted ecosystems worldwide. At the same time, rivers and streams are highly dynamic systems of exceptio
Last changed: 07.04.2022Curdin Brugger's collage of over 100 pesticide bottles was created as part of the "Pestrop" research project. The project investigates the ecological, health and institutional dimensions of pesticide
Last changed: 12.04.2022Chemicals from building materials, cleaning agents and pharmaceuticals or cosmetics reach the wastewater treatment plants with the domestic wastewater. Depending on the state of development, these mic
Last changed: 25.04.2022The sewage system in Switzerland is very effective, one of the best in the world, but it is also highly costly and resource-intense. A 130,000-kilometre underground sewer system disposes of human wast
Last changed: 03.05.2022The difference couldn’t be starker: In Switzerland, 97 per cent of households are connected to central wastewater treatment plants, whereas three billion people worldwide have no connection to a sewag
Last changed: 03.05.2022A new format for conferences aims to facilitate much-needed change in science. Researchers from all over the world, from all gender and from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, are to be explicit
Last changed: 03.05.2022“Detection and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater” – research projects on this scale generally take several years. But now, thanks to major efforts, a group of scientists led by Professor Tama
Last changed: 03.05.2022Warm and dry weather, in the first half of April especially, led to the deposition of large quantities of flower pollen. When this was followed by precipitation in some regions, the pollen was washed
Last changed: 03.05.2022Every day, several tons of pharmaceutical ingredients are released into bodies of water worldwide. These originate mainly from domestic wastewater, because most substances are excreted again after ing
Last changed: 03.05.2022Naturally occurring (geogenic) arsenic contamination in groundwater is a problem of global significance, with noteworthy occurrences in large parts of the alluvial and deltaic aquifers in South and So
Last changed: 05.05.2022Oceans are made up of multiple layers, ranging from lighter, warmer waters at the top to denser, cooler waters at the bottom. Ocean mixing is vital to move heat, oxygen, nutrients and pollutants betwe
Last changed: 05.05.2022Countless chemical substances, including fertilisers and pesticides but also pharmaceutical substances and industrial products, leak into groundwater, lakes and rivers. “We want to know what the impac
Last changed: 05.05.2022“ValueDecisions” is the name of the new tool developed by Judit Lienert and her research group, which deals with decision analysis at the aquatic research institute Eawag. The web app relieves users o
Last changed: 09.05.2022Through wastewater, rivers and lakes are polluted with numerous micropollutants which originate from care products and pharmaceuticals, among other things. The Waters Protection Act therefore aims to
Last changed: 11.05.2022One of the aims of the Swiss Water Protection Ordinance is to ensure that sediments do not contain persistent chemicals or accumulate substances that have a harmful effect on organisms. This is becaus
Last changed: 11.05.2022With a length of two centimetres, amphipods are not particularly large even in surface waters, but in groundwater they are tiny. They usually measure between one and ten millimetres. A team led by Pro
Last changed: 11.05.2022At 10 to 20 centimetres, they are the largest invertebrates in Swiss water bodies; they are active at night and little known even by fishermen and naturalists. Native crayfish live a secretive life fa
Last changed: 11.05.2022In agricultural areas, large volumes of water from fields, roads and paths enter streams via manholes or other artificial drainage systems. Because this water is not purified, either at a treatment pl
Last changed: 11.05.2022The microbes in our gut help us digest food, and help us to defend against pathogens. For pathogens to infect us, they must compete with the variety of healthy microbial species present in the gut. Th
Last changed: 11.05.2022The Zambezi and Kafue Rivers in southern Africa still carry very clean water today. Only below dams do they suffer from increased water temperatures, lack of oxygen and loss of sediments. Smaller trib
Last changed: 11.05.2022The energy turnaround - the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources - is being driven forward worldwide. "Reductions in fossil fuel emissions have been crucial in combating air pollution,
Last changed: 11.05.2022An Eawag researcher has helped to develop a new approach to tracking how river water enters the groundwater. In the test area within the Emmental, the flow time within the aquifer has been shown to be
Last changed: 11.05.2022The researchers from Empa and Eawag tackle these miniscule pathogens using two clever tricks: First, a temporary reduction in pH causes the tiny viruses, which are only about 70 nanometres across, to
Last changed: 11.05.2022How dangerous are chemicals that enter water bodies for aquatic life? To answer this question, tests are needed on organisms – or as is increasingly the case – on isolated cells, which can replace tes
Last changed: 11.05.2022“I am really proud of our technology and can see huge potential in it”, says Eva Reynaert, who was involved in the project and was one of the advisors during the field testing. The Blue Diversion Auta
Last changed: 11.05.2022Questioning conventional wisdom is part of the scientist’s job. This also applies to legionella in plumbing systems. For decades, experts have maintained that the proliferation of these bacteria (the
Last changed: 11.05.2022Mercury is extremely toxic for humans and ecosystems. It evaporates very quickly, is transported in the air over long distances and accumulates in organisms. The heavy metal has therefore been known f
Last changed: 11.05.2022PREMIER is the name of the massive international project with a total budget of 9 million euros. The acronym stands for Prioritisation and Risk Evaluation of Medicines in the Environment. Along with t
Last changed: 11.05.2022Greywater is relatively clean wastewater – from showers, baths, bathroom and kitchen sinks, washing machines or dishwashers – which (unlike blackwater) has not been in direct contact with faeces. It a
Last changed: 11.05.2022Eradicated at the start of the 19th century, beavers can now be found once again almost anywhere across the length and breadth of the country. Particularly on the Swiss Plateau and in the last ten yea
Last changed: 11.05.2022Today, almost nothing works without rare earth metals. There would be no smartphones, flat screens, LED lamps, rechargeable batteries, electric motors and many other electronic devices. In the high-te
Last changed: 11.05.2022A large number of chemicals are used in everyday products, in agriculture or in industry. At some point, many of these end up in the environment. In order for these substances to be authorised for the
Last changed: 11.05.2022Can we recapture or detoxify the chemical waste of past generations? Microbiologist Hans Peter Kohler from the aquatic research institute Eawag and Empa chemist Norbert Heeb, together with researchers
Last changed: 12.05.2022Bacteriophages are viruses that look like lunar modules. But instead of landing peacefully on celestial bodies, they dock onto bacteria to destroy them a short time later. They need the bacteria as ho
Last changed: 12.05.2022Like a building plan, reference genomes provide a nearly complete genetic code of an organism, acting as a representative example of the entire species. “Comparisons of other genome sequence data with