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Water can be a tool for peace and prosperity. But water can also create tensions if usage is unfairly shared. World Water Day 2024 focused on the importance of working together to make water a catalyst for a more peaceful society.

Increased power trade from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam incentivizes water to remain in the Nile and helps to meet downstream needs.

Electricity trade between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt is proposed as a mechanism for alleviating Nile water disputes. Simulations show potential benefits, including reduced water deficits, lowered emissions and increased financial returns.

There is a pressing need to develop effective treatment technologies for 6PPD-quinone, a newly discovered micropollutant, given its prevalent presence in water. The proposed advanced oxidation of IO₄⁻ activation under solar light irradiation achieves efficient degradation of 6PPD-quinone at environmental concentration levels.

Proton transfer time-of-flight mass spectrometry offers a new analytical tool to measure aqueous concentrations of volatile analytes in real time by the approach of headspace sampling, holding significant promise for advancing understanding of water chlorination chemistry.

Access to clean water is a fundamental human right, yet over two billion worldwide lack this essential resource close to their homes. This scarcity fuels conflict and hampers development globally. Despite the situation’s gravity, I am steadfast in my belief that these challenges can be overcome.

Water commons are water resources collectively managed and utilized by communities as common property to support their food security, traditions, and livelihoods. Water commons are under increasing pressure of acquisition, privatization, and grabbing. This Comment analytically defines the water commons, examines their vulnerability to grabbing, and discusses the associated water justice and environmental implications.

Chloramine is one of the most widely used disinfection methods for drinking water, and monitoring the complex reactions is still challenging. The proton transfer time-of-flight mass spectrometry developed here offers great sensitivity in measuring the kinetics of disinfectant decay in water.

This paper explores legal processes for penalty setting in water theft cases in transboundary water systems and develops ideas to identify differences and potentially drive consistency between jurisdictions.

A membrane inspired by the arsenic–protein interactions in biological systems allows the efficient removal of various arsenic species from contaminated water.

Arsenic water contamination may affect spring water as well as water reservoirs around the world and requires the development of efficient and sustainable remediation technologies. A bioinspired porous membrane allows obtaining filtrated water with an As concentration below the recommendation from the World Health Organization.

An innovative approach for a portable water bottle utilizes walking-induced electrostatic charges to achieve highly efficient in-situ disinfection, providing a practical solution for ensuring clean water in decentralized environments.

The development of direct in situ disinfection methods in bottles is of vital importance for providing safe drinking water, especially in rural and disaster-stricken areas. Harvesting the electrostatic charges induced by walking can stimulate electroporation disinfection and provide readily available portable water for point-of-use applications.

The use of widely available groundwater and remote sensing data allows the identification of depth to groundwater thresholds to maintain water-dependent vegetation health.

This study demonstrates the evaluation of groundwater-dependent vegetation responses to changes in the depth to groundwater based on satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index, a simple and practical approach that supports water and conservation management.

This work reveals that international agricultural trade eases water scarcity yet exacerbates inequity, disproportionately favouring more affluent populations, thus emphasizing the necessity for pro-poor policies for inclusive sustainable development.

Solar power desalination is a promising technology for clean water production in off-grid locations. Now a time-variant version of this technology overcomes the solar power intermittency that such desalination plants suffer from, hence reducing the need for costly batteries

A ceramic-based metal–organic framework can be used to realize nanoporous membranes with improved stability over polymeric membranes.

Bridging the gap between hydrology and ecology, ecohydrology recognizes that water resources cannot be studied in isolation from ecosystems.

An absence of precipitation combined with drying of the ground through evaporation can deplete fresh water crucial for societies and ecosystems. However, new research highlights a more remote driver of drought.