Water resources articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Smart membranes with responsive wettability show promise for controllably separating oil/water mixtures but it remains challenging to fabricate responsive and stable scalable membranes. Here, the authors develop a capillary force-driven self-assembling strategy to construct a scalable and stable CO2-responsive membrane for the smart separation of various oil/water systems.

    • Yangyang Wang
    • , Shaokang Yang
    •  & Xiaowei Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Liu et al. used the NASA GRACE/FO missions to show that since 2019, groundwater depletion in California’s Central Valley has accelerated by 31% compared to recent droughts, and has increased by a nearly a factor of 5 compared to the 60-year average.

    • Pang-Wei Liu
    • , James S. Famiglietti
    •  & Matthew Rodell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A new stalagmite record from northern Italy and other published data from Europe and northern Africa reveals a split in the climatological westerlies during the early LIA, possibly attributed to sea ice melting.

    • Hsun-Ming Hu
    • , Chuan-Chou Shen
    •  & Robert Korty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A global fluoride hazard prediction map was created using machine learning and over 400,000 fluoride measurements, this shows ~180 million people are potentially affected by chronic fluoride exposure worldwide, mostly in Asia and Africa.

    • Joel Podgorski
    •  & Michael Berg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This work identifies the world’s most vulnerable basins to social and ecological impacts from freshwater stress and storage loss: a set of 168 hotspot basins for global prioritization that encompass 1.5 billion people, 17% of global food crops, 13% of global GDP, and hundreds of significant wetlands.

    • Xander Huggins
    • , Tom Gleeson
    •  & James S. Famiglietti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Much effort is invested in calibrating model parameters for accurate outputs, but established methods can be inefficient and generic. By learning from big dataset, a new differentiable framework for model parameterization outperforms state-of-the-art methods, produce more physically-coherent results, using a fraction of the training data, computational power, and time. The method promotes a deep integration of machine learning with process-based geoscientific models.

    • Wen-Ping Tsai
    • , Dapeng Feng
    •  & Chaopeng Shen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Integrating river system and economy-wide models in a dynamic, iterative, bidirectional fashion allows assessing some economic impacts of interventions in river systems. Here the authors use this framework to compare water resources management strategies for the Nile in a quest for efficient use of the river’s limited and stressed water resources.

    • Mohammed Basheer
    • , Victor Nechifor
    •  & Julien J. Harou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This paper quantifies global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 and explores potential solutions. One third to nearly half of the global urban population is projected to face water scarcity problems.

    • Chunyang He
    • , Zhifeng Liu
    •  & Brett A. Bryan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Clean water is a fundamental resource, yet the economic impacts of pollution, drinking water availability, and greenhouse gas emissions from freshwaters are unknown. Here the authors combine models with economic assessments and find trillions of dollars in savings by mitigating lake methane emissions.

    • John A. Downing
    • , Stephen Polasky
    •  & Stephen C. Newbold

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Osmotically assisted reverse osmosis can overcome limitations of the reverse osmosis process but a strong membrane which can withstand a high hydraulic pressure is crucial. Here, the authors develop strong polymer thin film composite hollow fiber membranes with exceptionally high hydraulic burst pressures of up to 110 bar, while maintaining high water permeance and salt rejection.

    • Can Zeng Liang
    • , Mohammad Askari
    •  & Tai-Shung Chung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors here address water sustainability in the greater area of Beijing, China. Specifically, the positive effects towards Beijing groundwater levels via water diversion from the Yangtze River to the North are shown.

    • Di Long
    • , Wenting Yang
    •  & Yoshihide Wada

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High temperatures induced during lasing can deform the substrate polymer used for fabrication of electrically conductive membranes. Here, the authors show that sequential infiltration synthesis of alumina stabilizes polyethersulfone (PES) membranes against deformation above the polymers’ glass transition temperature.

    • David S. Bergsman
    • , Bezawit A. Getachew
    •  & Jeffrey C. Grossman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors of this study compile data on spatial and temporal dynamics of surface water bodies across China, covering a time span from 1989 – 2016. The study describes hot-spot areas with strongly decreasing trends in surface water area and terrestrial water storage in North China and discusses implications of water resources and security in China.

    • Xinxin Wang
    • , Xiangming Xiao
    •  & Bo Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of power plant water shortage during drought on electricity prices are understudied. Here the authors show that on extreme days, almost 50% (7 GWe) of the freshwater thermal capacity is unavailable in the Great Britain and annualized cumulative costs on electricity prices are in the range of £29-95m per year.

    • Edward A. Byers
    • , Gemma Coxon
    •  & Jim W. Hall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Economic estimates of flood damages rely on depth–damage functions that are inadequately verified. Here, the authors assessed flood vulnerability in the US and found that current depth–damage functions consist of disparate relationships that match poorly with observations which better follow a bimodal beta distribution.

    • Oliver E. J. Wing
    • , Nicholas Pinter
    •  & Carolyn Kousky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The potential of seasonal pumped hydropower storage (SPHS) plant to fulfil future energy storage requirements is vast in mountainous regions. Here the authors show that SPHS costs vary from 0.007 to 0.2 US$ m−3 of water stored, 1.8 to 50 US$ MWh−1 of energy stored and 0.37 to 0.6 US$ GW−1 of installed power generation capacity.

    • Julian D. Hunt
    • , Edward Byers
    •  & Keywan Riahi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role of solar and wind energy (SWE) in management of water-food-energy (WFE) nexus is largely neglected. Here the authors developed a trade-off frontier framework to quantify the water sustainability value of SWE and applied it in California, where they found that SWE penetration creates beneficial feedback for the WFE nexus by enhancing drought resilience and benefits groundwater sustainability over long run.

    • Xiaogang He
    • , Kairui Feng
    •  & Justin Sheffield

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Water resources planning requires infrastructure development consider regional climatic uncertainties. Here the authors introduce a new dynamic planning framework that captures opportunities to learn about climate change over time. By applying it to reservoir planning in Kenya, they show the value of flexible approaches in responding to learning.

    • Sarah Fletcher
    • , Megan Lickley
    •  & Kenneth Strzepek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Impact models projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here the authors test systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions.

    • Jacob Schewe
    • , Simon N. Gosling
    •  & Lila Warszawski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forecasting drought and its impact on agriculture and ecosystems is challenged by a lack of knowledge of vegetation access to deep moisture. Here the authors show that combining vegetation and water storage remote sensing can be used to infer this knowledge, allowing drought impact forecasts months in advance.

    • Siyuan Tian
    • , Albert I. J. M. Van Dijk
    •  & Luigi J. Renzullo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are dynamic and complex interactions between population and water resources. Here the authors studied the spatio-temporal relationship between human and water resources in conterminous US and found that dynamic human distance to water reflects the changing societal reliance on adjacency to major rivers.

    • Yu Fang
    •  & James W. Jawitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change will affect both the demand for electrical power and the generating capabilities of hydropower plants. Here the authors investigated the combined impact of these effects in the US Pacific Northwest by considering the dynamics of the regional  power grid, where they reveal a profound impact of climate change on power shortfall risk by the year 2035.

    • S. W. D. Turner
    • , N. Voisin
    •  & M. Jourabchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Better understanding of the determinants of residential water demand is important for Tropical Asian countries. Here the author studied how Singapore household electricity use from appliances modify weather-induced water demand and found that residential water and electricity demand respond differently to heat across different income groups.

    • Alberto Salvo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solar steam generation is limited by fouling of solar converters, and the steam temperature is usually pinned to 100 °C. Here, both limitations are overcome in a system utilizing a solar absorber and light down-converter to achieve radiative heating, which does not require physical contact between absorber and water.

    • Thomas A. Cooper
    • , Seyed H. Zandavi
    •  & Gang Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Investment in watershed services programs is growing, however the factors that contribute to sustainability of such programs are unclear. Here the authors use a large database of cities around the world to show that payment schemes are more likely to be present in watersheds with more agricultural land and less protected areas.

    • Chelsie L. Romulo
    • , Stephen Posner
    •  & Robert I. McDonald

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Groundwater resources are coming under increasing pressure leading to water quality loss. Here, the authors find that recent groundwater pumping has led to increasing arsenic concentrations in the San Joaquin Valley, California aquifers from arsenic residing in the pore water of clay strata released by overpumping.

    • Ryan Smith
    • , Rosemary Knight
    •  & Scott Fendorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wildland fire seasons in the United States are getting longer, yet the impacts of fire on water availability at the regional scale are unclear. Here the authors show that fire increased annual river flow throughout the West, while prescribed burns in the subtropical Southeast had limited impact on river flow.

    • Dennis W. Hallema
    • , Ge Sun
    •  & Steven G. McNulty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land surface models often use a spatially uniform air temperature threshold when partitioning rain and snow. Here Jennings et al. show that the threshold varies significantly across the Northern Hemisphere and that threshold selection is a large source of uncertainty in snowfall simulations.

    • Keith S. Jennings
    • , Taylor S. Winchell
    •  & Noah P. Molotch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cool roofs have been shown to mitigate heat in urban areas, but their impact on water conservation has not been examined. Here the authors conduct simulations with an urban canopy model to show that implementation of cool roofs in California can also reduce outdoor water consumption by up to 9%.

    • Pouya Vahmani
    •  & Andrew D. Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Significant amounts of different perchlorate salts have been discovered on the surface of Mars. Here, the authors show that magnesium perchlorate has a major impact on water structure in solution, providing insight into how an aqueous fluid might exist under the sub-freezing conditions present on Mars.

    • Samuel Lenton
    • , Natasha H. Rhys
    •  & Lorna Dougan

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