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Surface conductance variations in non-vegetated salt flats are similar to those in vegetated ecosystems and in an idealized boundary layer model. This suggests that soil moisture, and not vapour pressure deficit, controls surface conductance variations.
Harmful algal blooms threaten water resources across the globe. This study quantifies how temperature affects the occurrence and concentration of microcystin in lakes across the United States and finds that regions with temperatures that promote high microcystin concentrations will shift to higher latitudes in the coming decades.
Widespread switching of cereal crops in the Indo-Gangetic Plain from paddy/wheat to millet/sorghum will result in water savings with the co-benefits of improved nutrition, calorie production and increased farmers’ profits.
Wastewater-based epidemiology can be used to monitor viruses and chemical spread across diverse populations. Analysis of wastewater collected over 13 years from one treatment plant and from 51 wastewater treatment plants in 2021 shows the efficacy of the technique for studying the use of performance-enhancing substances.
Finding an efficient way to extract uranium from uranium mine wastewater is an essential environmental requirement. A spontaneous electrochemical method is now shown to enable stable and efficient uranium extraction with net electrical energy output.
This study showcases that balancing-oriented hydropower operation supporting variable renewable energy integration provides a more affordable and water-saving clean energy transition than the conventional peak-shaving-oriented operation.
Effective flood response management relies on rapid high-resolution and high-accuracy flood inundation predictions. This study develops a low-fidelity model and upskills its predictions, greatly reducing the computational time while maintaining a high resolution and accuracy comparable with a high-fidelity model.
Lithium mining is both energy and land intensive. The use of a 3D porous natural cellulose fibre structure enables an interfacial crystallization method for the selective extraction of lithium from both brine and seawater that can be a significant alternative to mining.
Membrane desalination is a promising technology for producing freshwater from saline waters. Submicrometre-thick and nanopore-structured graphdiyne membranes on porous Cu hollow fibres accomplish nearly perfect NaCl rejections and ultrahigh water permeabilities.
Open-source sensors are becoming increasingly popular and accurate for river science, but widespread adoption is limited by the knowledge required to use them. This study presents an open-source optical backscatter sensor and water pressure sensor that can be ordered almost fully assembled, requires no coding to deploy and costs approximately 50 USD.
It is critical to understand different drivers of regional hydroclimate change and to reduce uncertainty in future projections. This study disentangles the effects of CO2 physiology and deforestation on projected precipitation, surface relative humidity and air temperature in Amazonia using multiple Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 experiments.
Solar-driven reverse distillation integrated with thermal localization has shown attractive solar-to-water conversion efficiency. Solar distillation devices based on reverse-evaporating water layers of millimetre-scale thickness successfully realize simultaneous high efficiency and salt rejection during solar desalination processes.
This article tells the story of the earliest ceramic drainage system unearthed at the Pingliangtai site on the Central Plains of China, which represents an unprecedented social and environmental manipulation as societies faced surging environmental crises in the Late Holocene East Asian Monsoon region.
Solar-driven water evaporation shows great potentials for obtaining clean water. An integrated system based on clean water–energy–food with solar-desalination, power generation and crop irrigation functions is a valuable strategy consistent with sustainable development.
Water scarcity and climate change could potentially threaten energy security. This study highlights the importance of integrated power sector planning in resolving water–carbon tradeoffs by coupling unit-level dry cooling technology, alternative water supply and CO2 storage.
This research reveals a previously unrecognized yet potentially widespread biological pathway of methylmercury detoxification, which may exert important controls on the net production and bioaccumulation of the methylmercury toxin in aquatic food webs.
One of the main problems of membarnes used in wastewater managements is that they are easily affected by fouling. A thin-film composite nanoporous membrane obtained by co-deposition of dopamine and polyethyleneimine shows effective electrodialytic fractionation of organics and NaCl with almost zero membrane fouling.
Surface water quality is impacted by climate change and human activities. This study identifies Sub-Saharan Africa as a major future hotspot of surface water pollution by applying a high-resolution global surface water quality model up to 2100.
Although the transformation of bacteria due to the presence of contaminants in wastewater is often attributed to geometrical aspects, studying the impact of physical and chemical stressors shows that geometry is not the only factor to be taken into account.
The combination of ultraviolet-C emitting diodes with side-emitting optical fibres can be used to effectively inhibit biofilm formation, as demonstrated within the water system of the International Space Station.