Perspectives

This Perspective proposes a way to design membranes to separate ions of similar size and charge with a view to their use in resource recovery, water reuse and energy storage technologies.

This Perspective reviews the current understanding of groundwater recharge by meltwater, discusses the scales at which cryosphere–groundwater interactions are relevant, identifies key cryo-hydrogeological processes that need further study, and emphasizes the critical importance of these interactions for current and future water availability in mountain regions.

This study addresses the limitations and constraints of flood adaptation. These limits could result in a growing ‘adaptation gap’ (the difference between actual and desirable flood risk), leading to unbearable risks and pushing communities in flood zones into retreat.

The potential hazard of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances has led to new regulations affecting requirements for water quality. This Perspective proposes a protocol to adapt water treatment technology to meet new regulation requirements.

Access to sanitation is a fundamental right that is still missing, especially in many parts of low-income countries. This Perspective focuses on the impact of unclean school latrines on child health.

Efficiency is only one of the parameters involved in solar evaporation that should be improved to make it practical. Depending on the application, various factors of merit should be taken into consideration, as discussed in this Perspective.

In this Perspective, the authors survey potential water-system-wide benefits of AI applications from catchments to end-users and then highlight potential systemic barriers, direct risks and exposures to cascading failures, which may prove catastrophic for communities. In response, they make three recommendations for safe and responsible deployment of AI across potable water supply and sewage disposal systems.

This Perspective characterizes the major challenges to open-access water data in China. A potential data management infrastructure to improve the collection, sharing, and use of water data is outlined.

Drinking water treatment technologies are typically evaluated on the basis of narrow evaluation criteria, such as contaminant removal efficiency. This Perspective proposes additional user-centric criteria to evaluate the hidden and often gendered costs of water treatment technologies, including affordability, labour burden and user acceptance.

This Perspective reviews key water-related goals and progress achieved since the first UN Water Conference in Mar del Plata (1977) and highlights three priorities for the second UN Water Conference in New York (2023).

Decentralized water treatment technologies could help in addressing global key water issues. This Perspective reviews the literature on the psychological determinants of acceptance, support and behaviour change related to decentralized water treatment technologies and proposes a user-focused theory of change to guide the promotion of these technologies.

Global groundwater resources are under strain, with cascading effects on producers, food and fibre production systems, communities and ecosystems. In this Perspective, the authors call for a major shift in research, extension and policy priorities to build polycentric governance capacity and strategic planning tools to sustain aquifer-dependent communities.

Recovering metals from wastewater and brine could augment metal stocks that are fundamental to modern technology. This Perspective assesses the potential of, and provides guidance for, recovering metals from wastewater and brine.