news 2020

Farmers could increase their revenues by increasing biodiversity on their land. This is the conclusion reached by an interdisciplinary research team including the fields of agricultural sciences, ecology and economics at ETH Zurich and other universities. Many farmers associate grassland biodiversity with lower yields and financial losses.

The semiconductor perovskite is seen as a new hope to bring the production price of solar cells down below that of silicon used so far. Empa is developing new manufacturing processes to make perovskite solar cells not only cheaper but also faster to produce and make them ready for industrial use. Since the development of the first perovskite solar cell in 2009, its efficiency is now equal to that of a conventional silicon cell.

Swiss households have excessively large carbon footprints. However, that footprint depends more on socio-economic status than location - whether the household is in the countryside or the city - because people travel more in the country but consume more in cities. Swiss households enjoy a high standard of living, but this results in a large carbon footprint.

Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), formerly widely used as a fungicide, is one of the so-called dirty dozen - the first twelve toxic chemicals whose use was banned worldwide in 2004 under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. However, due to its chemical structure, this compound is extremely stable and is only broken down very slowly in nature.

Researchers at EPFL are assessing Switzerland's solar power potential. Their results show that photovoltaic panels could be installed on more than half of the country's 9.6 million rooftops. The resulting power would meet more than 40% of Swiss electricity demand. The widespread installation of photovoltaic panels on building rooftops could play an important role in Switzerland's transition to a low-carbon energy system.

Researchers at EPFL and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) have found that the temperature of Swiss rivers is rising steadily. This situation is straining ecosystems and could limit the use of this water in Switzerland's nuclear and hydropower industries. For a long time, meltwater from snow and glaciers has limited the warming of the Swiss rivers, allowing them to maintain a relatively low temperature throughout the year.

ETH researchers confirm the paradox: rather than withering during droughts, plants at higher elevations absolutely thrive, as a study just published Climate Change shows. Until now, scientists assumed that most plants suffer from water stress during droughts: they close their stomata to retain water, stop growing and, in the worst case, wither.

A researcher from the University of Geneva has synthesized two decades of scientific studies on climate change to identify the obstacles to behaviour change and find ways to overcome them. Why is it that more individual actions are not taken to combat climate change? What should be done to embolden individuals to act within their scope of action? To answer these questions, a researcher at the University of Geneva , Switzerland, integrated the results of the scientific literature on climate change in the framework of a Geneva Science-Policy Interface (GSPI) policy brief.

Concerns about climate change have given rise to a whole series of concepts that are widely used despite their lack of a concrete definition. EPFL researchers have taken a closer look at the "green economy" concept in particular to clarify exactly what it means. Today's consumers want a cleaner, greener society.

Under the leadership of astrophysicist Kathrin Altwegg, Bernese researchers have found an explanation for why very little nitrogen could previously be accounted for in the nebulous covering of comets: the building block for life predominantly occurs in the form of ammonium salts, the occurrence of which could not previously be measured.

Researchers at EPFL have developed a new model to calculate hydraulic fracture propagation. Acclaimed for its accuracy by experts, the model better predicts fracture geometry and the energy cost of hydraulic fracturing - a widely used technique in areas such as CO2 storage, hydrocarbon extraction, dams and volcano hazard monitoring.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and other universities found evidence that expanding irrigation has dampened anthropogenic warming during hot days, with particularly strong effects over South Asia. Large-scale irrigation is one of the land management practices with the largest effect on climate conditions - and especially hot extremes - in various regions across the globe.

Researchers from UNIGE and UNIL analysed water governance in six European countries from 1750 onwards. They demonstrated that there has been an inflationary trend in the number of regulations, and that - far from improving the situation - this has led to serious malfunctions in the system. The use of environmental resources has been regulated for centuries with the aim of improving the management and behaviour of private and public actors on an on-going basis.

It is well-established that biodiverse ecosystems generally function better than monocultures. Ecologists at the University of Zurich have now shown that the same is true on a larger scale: Having a mix of different land-covers including grassland, forest, urban areas and water bodies improves the functioning and stability of a landscape - irrespective of the plant species diversity, region and climate.

Researchers at the joint EPFL-Empa lab in Sion have developed a reactor system and an analysis method that has allowed them to observe the real-time production of synthetic natural gas from CO2 and H2 for the first time. Infrared (IR) thermography is used to determine the temperature of humans and objects with high precision and without interfering with the system.

Nanomedicine is making headways. However, the tiny nanoparticles that are being used as carriers for drugs could find their way into water, soil and air. Empa researchers are investigating potential risks. Fear is a bad counselor. In the comic book series "Asterix", the Gaul chief Vitalstatistix may be afraid that the sky may fall on his head.

Researchers at EPFL and the Swiss Federal Office of Energy have devised strategies for reducing the earthquake risk associated with geothermal energy, CO2 storage and other human activities happening deep underground. Although most earthquakes are attributable to natural causes, some are triggered - directly or indirectly - by human activity.

Climate researchers can now detect the fingerprint of global warming in daily weather observations at the global level. They are thus amending a long-established paradigm: weather is not climate ' but climate change can now be detected in daily weather. This research was carried out by ETH Zurich and the Swiss Data Science Center, co-directed by EPFL.

Searched for and found: climate researchers can now detect the fingerprint of global warming in daily weather observations at the global scale. They are thus amending a long-established paradigm: weather is not climate - but climate change can now be detected in daily weather. In October this year, weather researchers in Utah measured the lowest temperature ever recorded in the month of October in the US (excluding Alaska): -37.1°C.