Featured
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News |
The Solar System has a new ocean — it’s buried in a small Saturn moon
The sea inside Saturn’s satellite Mimas formed in the past 25 million years, a blink of the eye in geological terms.
- Alexandra Witze
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News & Views |
Groundwater decline is global but not universal
Measurements of groundwater levels in 170,000 wells reveal the global extent of groundwater decline. But the data also show that such depletion is not inevitable in a changing climate, providing hope for a resilient water future.
- Donald John MacAllister
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Outlook |
Webcast: How water researchers are rethinking the global flood crisis
A panel of specialists discuss the latest insights on protecting people, habitats and infrastructure from the risks of flooding.
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Outlook |
Water and warfare: the battle to control a precious resource
Climate change could intensify the role of this vital and strategic asset in armed conflict.
- Elie Dolgin
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Outlook |
How to take ‘forever’ out of forever chemicals
Stubborn compounds called PFAS in drinking water put health at risk. Technologies based on plasmas, pressure, sound or fungus could finally degrade these chemicals.
- Neil Savage
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Outlook |
Water: a source of life and strife
Water is an essential resource, but it can also cause conflict, expose people to pollution and put communities at risk in the form of flooding.
- Herb Brody
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Outlook |
Sizing up hydrogen’s hydrological footprint
The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier is essential to decarbonizing economies. Industrial policies and technology developments could trim the water consumption involved in producing the gas, minimizing its cost and environmental impact.
- Peter Fairley
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Outlook |
Fresh water from thin air
Strategies for collecting water from the atmosphere using minimal energy could fill a crucial gap in sustaining communities that have limited access to water.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Outlook |
The most important issue about water is not supply, but how it is used
The world faces a series of deep and worsening crises that demand radical changes in how we understand, manage and use fresh water.
- Peter Gleick
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Outlook |
The human factor in water disasters
Decisions about land use and infrastructure have left little space for water, amplifying the effects of natural disasters and climate change.
- Erica Gies
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Spotlight |
We need to talk about water
Water needs to be central to India’s efforts to tackle floods, pollution and urbanization.
- Gautam I. Menon
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Nature Index |
City-based scientists get creative to tackle rural-research needs
Californian projects show how community engagement can break down urban–rural barriers in the United States.
- Virginia Gewin
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Technology Feature |
Microbial miners take on rare-earth metals
As a tech-hungry world gobbles up rare-earth elements, researchers are adapting bacteria that can isolate and purify the metals in the absence of harsh chemicals.
- Amber Dance
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News |
The Amazon’s record-setting drought: how bad will it be?
Scientists tell Nature why the rainforest has dried out, and what to expect in the coming months.
- Meghie Rodrigues
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Correspondence |
Britain and Ireland’s largest lake is dying in plain sight
- Neil Reid
- & Mark C. Emmerson
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Correspondence |
Extreme drought is again isolating people in Amazonia
- Letícia Santos de Lima
- , Hernani Fernandes Magalhães de Oliveira
- & Marcia Nunes Macedo
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News |
Grand plan to drought-proof India could reduce rainfall
The major engineering scheme aims to interlink several Indian rivers to support irrigation.
- Rishika Pardikar
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Spotlight |
Changing old viticulture for all the right rieslings
Can the French wine industry, built on history and terroir, adapt fast enough to withstand climate change?
- Rachel Nuwer
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Where I Work |
I ski for miles in the wilderness to measure dust atop snow
Snow hydrologist McKenzie Skiles takes to her skis in rural parts of the United States each spring to track dust’s impact on water resources.
- Virginia Gewin
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News |
Maui fires could taint the island’s waters — scientists are investigating
Researchers in Hawaii are studying the deadly blazes’ effects on drinking-water quality and how they might affect local marine ecosystems.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Article |
Future emergence of new ecosystems caused by glacial retreat
By 2100, the decline of all glaciers outside the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will produce new terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems, posing both challenges and opportunities for conservation.
- J. B. Bosson
- , M. Huss
- & F. Arthaud
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News |
How Beijing’s deadly floods could be avoided
The floods that have swept China in the past week were exacerbated by poor planning for drainage.
- Gemma Conroy
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Editorial |
Water crisis: how local technologies can help solve a global problem
Climate change is making water stress worse for billions worldwide. Scaling up both new and traditional solutions must be a priority.
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Career Column |
Children on fieldwork: how two scientist mothers made it happen
We both struggled with the idea of juggling our families and field teams — but we found good reasons to keep pursuing our goals.
- Verónica Laura Lozano
- & María Laura Sánchez
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News |
Threatened Mexican oasis loses its main researcher and protector — will it survive?
Valeria Souza has long fought the drainage of the Cuatro Ciénegas basin, where ancient microbes offer clues to the origins of life.
- Myriam Vidal Valero
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News |
Water pollution ‘timebomb’ threatens global health
Simulations predict a water-pollution crisis by the end of the century.
- Lilly Tozer
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Article |
Plastic debris in lakes and reservoirs
Analysis of plastic debris found in surface waters shows that lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized regions, as well as those with elevated deposition areas, are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination.
- Veronica Nava
- , Sudeep Chandra
- & Barbara Leoni
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Correspondence |
Preparedness for drought is more than a climate-change fix
- Cecilia Tortajada
- & Felipe Arreguín
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Career Q&A |
Women in engineering: using hydrology to manage Jordan’s scarce water
Esraa Tarawneh says research and data gathering can improve her country’s resilience to droughts and rare flash floods.
- Jacqui Thornton
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News |
Rampant groundwater pumping has changed the tilt of Earth’s axis
Human depletion of underground reservoirs has shifted the global distribution of water so much that the North Pole has drifted by more than 4 centimetres per year.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Correspondence |
Iran: renovated irrigation network deepens water crisis
- Mohsen Maghrebi
- , Roohollah Noori
- & Amir AghaKouchak
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News |
Saving the iconic Colorado River — scientists say latest plan is not enough
US states pledge to cut their use of water from the river, which has been drained by climate change and drought.
- Alexandra Witze
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Correspondence |
Carbon’s social cost can’t be retrofitted to water
- Sarah Wheeler
- , Claudia Ringler
- & Dustin Garrick
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News Explainer |
What the science says about California’s record–setting snow
A relentless series of ‘rivers in the sky’ is creating extreme conditions across the state, but a role for climate change is unclear.
- Gemma Conroy
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Editorial |
Global action on water: less rhetoric and more science
The UN’s first water conference in decades put the spotlight on a vital and troubled resource. But to widen access and resolve disputes, one thing is needed above all: data.
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Comment |
Why we need a new economics of water as a common good
Anthropogenic pressures and climate change are altering water flows worldwide. Better understanding, new economic thinking and an international governance framework are needed to stave off catastrophe.
- Johan Rockström
- , Mariana Mazzucato
- & Dieter Gerten
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News Explainer |
The world faces a water crisis — 4 powerful charts show how
Hundreds of millions of people lack access to safe water and sanitation. Will the first UN conference on water in nearly 50 years make a difference?
- Miryam Naddaf
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News |
How the US will remove ‘forever chemicals’ from its drinking water
The EPA has proposed a strict PFAS limit, but it will take money and innovative technologies to implement the plan.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Article |
Crop switching can enhance environmental sustainability and farmer incomes in China
Spatial optimizations of high-resolution data from China on crop-specific yields, harvested areas, environmental footprints and farmer incomes shows that crop switching can enhance environmental sustainability and farmer incomes, and contribute substantially towards China’s agricultural sustainable development targets.
- Wei Xie
- , Anfeng Zhu
- & Kyle Frankel Davis
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Book Review |
Hauling icebergs to Africa: could a bizarre plan to get drinking water actually work?
Transporting water trapped in icebergs to drought-plagued regions is pooh-poohed by scientists — but some see it as a huge opportunity.
- Josie Glausiusz
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Editorial |
The water crisis is worsening. Researchers must tackle it together
It’s unacceptable that millions living in poverty still lack access to safe water and basic sanitation. Nature Water will help researchers to find a way forward.
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News & Views |
Unconventional tracers show that spring waters on Mount Fuji run deep
A trio of tracers has debunked a long-held model of the origins of spring water on Mount Fuji, revealing interactions between shallow and deep aquifer layers, and providing a fresh approach for probing mountain groundwater flow.
- Lauren Somers
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News |
Billion-dollar NASA satellite launches to track Earth’s water
SWOT satellite will bounce radar off water bodies to give scientists a new window into climate change and the global water cycle.
- Jeff Tollefson
How to achieve safe water access for all: work with local communities