Last changed: 29.11.2021Prof. Christoph Vorburger is a biologist and heads the Aquatic Ecology department at the aquatic research institute Eawag. He is also adjunct professor at the Institute of Integrative Biology at ETH Z
Last changed: 29.11.2021Elisa Calamita’s doctoral thesis in the Eawag Surface Waters Department and at ETH Zurich was part of the Horizon 2020 project DAFNE. The international project is looking for new ways to optimally use
Last changed: 09.11.2021Seagrasses cover large swathes of shallow coastal seas, where they provide a vital habitat. They also remove large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the atmosphere and store it in the ecosystem.
Last changed: 18.11.2021This makes the three researchers among the most-cited and influential scientists worldwide – either in their specific field or for their cross-field performance. Clarivate Analytics has been publishin
Last changed: 18.11.2021Enthusing about the aquatic research institute Eawag, Peter Vanrolleghem, waste water engineer from Canada’s Laval University says “This is where the mathematician gets to understand what activated sl
Last changed: 17.11.2021At the fourth Global Science Film Festival, the organisers’ motto reads: “The shortest distance between science and society is cinema”. The GSFF celebrates film as a means of communication in the scie
Last changed: 16.11.2021“He was a great friend of Eawag,” says Janet Hering, Director of the aquatic research institute Eawag. James (Jim) Morgan was an American environmental scientist and engineer who died in 2020 at the a
Last changed: 16.11.2021From April 2019 to April 2020, LéXPLORE scientists recorded a set of data that includes wind speed, current velocity, temperature and turbulence – all indicators that shed light on how mixing takes pl
Last changed: 02.11.2021The environmental chemist Barbara F. Günthardt has been awarded the ETH Medal for her doctoral thesis on plant toxins. She has not only developed methods for quantifying these substances, but has also
Last changed: 06.10.2021Though he is not one to seek the limelight, keen mountaineer Urs von Gunten has now reached a career summit: he is to receive the American Chemical Society’s Award for Creative Advances in Environment
Last changed: 04.10.2021Researchers have qualities that most of them are not even aware of. They can play the role of diplomats or, as political scientist Mario Angst says: “They are bridge builders between organisations tha
Last changed: 04.10.2021The new virtual tour through the entire NEST building makes the numerous newly developed innovations demonstrated in practical applications accessible to a larger audience. The environmental engineer
Last changed: 04.10.2021The Kariba Dam is huge. A veritable behemoth made of one million cubic metres of concrete. It was built in 1959, five years before the independence of Zambia and Zimbabwe, which were then called North
Last changed: 04.10.2021Benoit Ferrari started at the Ecotox Centre in 2013 as group leader for sediment and soil ecotoxicology. Earlier stations of his research career were the University of Geneva and the Irstea (now: INRA
Last changed: 04.10.2021It was an exciting journey to the completion of FLUX, as the mixed use placed a variety of demands on the building that had to be met. In addition, there were other challenges that were not commonplac
Last changed: 04.10.2021The aim of Open Science is to make scientific results and findings accessible worldwide. Both research data (Open Research Data) and scientific publications (Open Access) should be made available and
Last changed: 04.10.2021Due to climate change, the glaciers of the Alps are melting. When the sometimes huge ice fields retreat, they often leave behind depressions and natural dams in the exposed landscape. The basins can f
Last changed: 04.10.2021At Eawag, Master’s theses are normally integrated into research projects, which gives students the advantage of working within a set framework but still having the flexibility to inject their own pers
Last changed: 04.10.2021In 2012, Eawag and ETH researcher Professor Jürg Beer published the hypothesis that the planets could influence the activity of the Sun. Together with researchers from Spain and Australia, he had reco
Last changed: 04.10.2021An infection with Salmonella can have very different consequences. While some infected people do not notice the infection with the bacteria at all – this is called an asymptomatic progression – others
Last changed: 12.10.2021In Indonesia, 70% of the waste is organic waste, which normally ends up in landfills or illegally dumped. Yet, given an economic incentive, organic waste is more often treated properly, before it ends
Last changed: 12.10.2021Sediments play a crucial role in the quality of water bodies as habitats. The Swiss Water Protection Ordinance therefore stipulates that sediments must not contain any persistent substances and substa
Last changed: 12.10.2021With today's International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the UN is working to promote careers of female researchers. The potential is great because women are still under-represented. Why is that?
Last changed: 12.10.2021Lake Tanganyika in Africa is one of the largest freshwater lakes on earth and provides a critical source of fish to millions of people in the surrounding region. There is therefore considerable intere
Last changed: 12.10.2021Lakes are subject to strong seasonal cycles. In many Swiss lakes at medium and high altitudes, the water mixes from the surface to the bottom in spring and fall. These vertical overturn events influen
Last changed: 12.10.2021The waters inhabited by copepods – seas, estuaries or lakes – are rarely still. How these tiny creatures nonetheless manage to reproduce in such turbulent environments is a question which has long int
Last changed: 12.10.2021Before 1900, to the north of the Alps in Switzerland, only one stickleback population – near Basel – is historically documented. In the early 20th century, the biologist Paul Steinmann was concerned t
Last changed: 12.10.2021They are also called power plants of the cells: the mitochondria. They are present in almost all eukaryotic cells and they supply the cells with energy. Until now, it was assumed that only mitochondri
Last changed: 12.10.2021How will climate change affect the water regime in Switzerland, the 'reservoir' of Europe? This was the key question addressed by the NCCS Hydro-CH2018 research project. The final symposium took place
Last changed: 12.10.2021What does water mean to you personally? For those of us in industrialized countries, access to safe water is such a normal part of everyday life that it is easy to take it for granted. Personally, I f
Last changed: 11.10.2021In an interview in the publication “Aqua & Gas”, project leader Piet Spaak talks about his project entitled “SeeWandel: Life in Lake Constance — yesterday, today and tomorrow”. He outlines the aims of
Last changed: 11.10.2021The Autarky water module, which treats and recycles grey water in situ, was developed by Eawag researchers with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. Thei
Last changed: 11.10.2021Bioavailable iron is essential for all living organisms. Iron deficiency amongst plants influences agricultural production. In his doctoral work with Stephan Hug and Janet Hering at the aquatic resear
Last changed: 11.10.2021“No bathing” rules were still imposed on many Swiss lakeshores until the 1980s. The lakes were literally running out of air at that time: they were polluted, over-fertilised and some, like Lake Baldeg
Last changed: 11.10.2021On 22 April 2021, Professor Janet Hering, since 2007 Director of the aquatic research institute Eawag, was named to the Fellows of the International Association of Geochemistry (IAGC). This honour – w
Last changed: 11.10.2021Our new Annual Report shows what the aquatic research institute Eawag has experienced and achieved in this challenging year of 2020. For instance, Eawag’s water research proved – perhaps surprisingly
Last changed: 14.10.2021Every year in an anonymous voting process, the students at the EPFL award the “Polysphere” prize to their professors in recognition of their services to academic teaching. One prize is awarded in each
Last changed: 12.10.2021The solubility of naturally occurring noble gases (from Helium to Xenon), depends on temperature as with other gases. If you analyse a groundwater sample, the concentrations of the noble gases dissolv
Last changed: 12.10.2021The series with Erfan Haghighi, Fatima Alkhatib, Dimitris Antonakis, Stanley Sam und Xiao Shan Yap was created as part of a photojournalism course that Christian Dinkel is tanking at the MAZ in Lucern
Last changed: 04.10.2021Nitrogen is vital for all forms of life: It is part of proteins, nucleic acids and other cell structures. Thus, it was of great importance for the development of life on early Earth to be able to conv
Last changed: 04.10.2021How can research support decisions in water management practice, even if much is still uncertain? When managing rivers, for example, the forecasts of what consequences various measures will have are o
Last changed: 04.10.2021LéXPLORE has been in operation for two and a half years. What has been or is being researched on the platform? Natacha Tofield-Pasche: There are about 30 projects underway. Some are looking at physica
Last changed: 04.10.2021It was a phone call that changed everything: “I wanted to know more about environmental sciences and about changes towards a ‘long-term future’, so I called Eawag, where I was put through to Dieter Im
Last changed: 04.10.2021What should be put in a time capsule that is placed into the foundation of a research building under construction and is intended to provide future generations with information about the era at the ti
Last changed: 04.10.2021Legionella are bacteria that occur, among other things, in drinking water systems and can cause fatal pneumonia in humans (Legionnaires’ disease). In Switzerland, setting high temperatures at the outl