Plants and water can mitigate heat in cities. Using Zurich as a case study, researchers tested a climate model which indicates how large the effect of green and blue spaces is. The model supports urban planning and shows where improvements would be particularly effective.

During ETH Day on 16 November 2024, environmental engineer Valentin Faust was awarded the Otto-Jaag Water Protection Prize for his doctoral thesis. His work provides important insights about the production of fertiliser from human urine.

The mission of Eawag's Sandec department is to find global solutions for safe sanitation and clean drinking water. Since September, it has been headed by Linda Strande, who has been a group leader in the department for the last 14 years. She succeeds Christoph Lüthi, who is devoting himself to new projects at Eawag.

With climate change, hot and dry summers are becoming more frequent, causing water shortages in some regions of Switzerland. Reusing treated wastewater could help to solve this problem. This has been demonstrated by an Eawag team on behalf of the FoeN and some cantons. The researchers also explain what still needs to be done to put the option into practice.

A new catalogue and database of over 17,000 European river catchments facilitates the work of researchers in the field of hydrology. The EStreams project, carried out at Eawag, provides hydrological and meteorological data as well as information on the landscape of the river regions. The records go back up to 120 years.

Aquatic invertebrates are used as bioindicators to evaluate the quality of Swiss watercourses. However, climate change is also leading to changes in the species composition of these organisms. Eawag has now investigated the impacts of increasing temperatures on water body evaluations on behalf of the FoeN. The findings: the indicators are expected to remain relevant at least for the coming decades.

Microorganisms in biofilms in rivers can break down harmful substances. Some are also able to degrade biocides, including the insect repellent diethyltoluamide (DEET) - or so it is thought.

More than half of the global population were estimated to lack safely managed drinking water services in a recent study lead by researchers. This is shown in a global map that researchers compiled using machine learning based on data from household surveys and data derived from Earth observations.

In view of biodiversity loss, it is important that early-career researchers get involved not only in science but also contribute to biodiversity policy. The Blue-Green Biodiversity research initiative of Eawag and WSL organised a workshop to facilitate cooperation between science, practice and politics.

In times of climate crisis and food shortages, the cultivation of microalgae is a promising solution that could fundamentally change the way we produce animal feed, bioplastics or biofuel. However, the enormous potential is still largely untapped, which is partly due to undeveloped cultivation methods. One of the challenges is to protect the cultures against pests. A new publication by Eawag now shows that co-cultures of different microalgae are more resistant to pests than monocultures.

Researchers at Eawag have complied and analysed a globally unique data set on the occurrence of various amphipods in groundwater. They were able to show that land use within a radius of up to one kilometre from the groundwater extraction site has an impact on these sensitive creatures. This could indicate that the current groundwater protection zones are not large enough.

Insects and spiders are important elements in the food webs of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. With declines in their biodiversity, the food supply for birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and small mammals is not only becoming scarcer, but also poorer in important fatty acids, as an international research team led by scientists from Eawag and WSL reports in the journal Science .

During heavy rainfall, sewage systems are frequently overloaded, leading to untreated wastewater being discharged into surface waters. Modelling techniques used by researchers now show that the volume of such combined sewer overflows could more than triple as a result of climate change However, these studies also reveal that this increase could be avoided through the use of Blue-Green Infrastructure, such as infiltration basins, retention ponds, and porous pavements.

Biodiversity is not a political programme: Only just 1.6 % of all documents searched at federal level make reference to the term. This is one of the many results that the WSL and Eawag institutes have compiled in the joint research initiative 'Blue-Green Biodiversity' and which are being presented today at the Special Info Day to an expert audience from administration, politics, research and practice.

Methane-oxidizing bacteria could play a greater role than previously thought in preventing the release of climate-damaging methane from lakes, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, and the Swiss Eawag report. They also show who is behind the process and how it works.

Cities need to become more sustainable and use their water resources more efficiently. Managing water in local small-scale cycles is one possible solution.