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Innovation - Environment - 22.11.2022 
The Swiss water turnaround: wait and see or take a proactive approach?
New technologies in the water sector can contribute to the flexible and sustainable development of urban water management and the sustainable utilisation of water as a resource. In a recent article in the journal Aqua & Gas, a team of researchers from the aquatic research institute Eawag shows what opportunities and risks are associated with this.
Environment - Health - 15.11.2022 
Monitoring antibiotic resistance in wastewater
Researchers at Eawag recommend setting up a monitoring system for antibiotic resistance in the synthesis report of the National Research Programme NRP 72 Antimicrobial resistance, similar to the wastewater monitoring for Sars-CoV-2. Antibiotic resistance endangers human and animal health worldwide. In order to be able to introduce effective measures against antibiotic-resistant pathogens, it is important to have detailed knowledge of the current situation and how resistances are spreading in the environment.
Environment - Earth Sciences - 07.11.2022 
Green and blue food webs are wired differently
Terrestrial and aquatic food webs respond differently to changes in the environment. Understanding these differences is fundamental to identifying the species most important to an ecosystem and to effectively protecting biodiversity. This is shown by a study led by the research institutes Eawag and WSL and published in the journal Nature Communications .
Environment - Chemistry - 24.10.2022 
Accurately tracking how plastic biodegrades
Researchers at ETH Zurich and Eawag have developed an approach to accurately record and fully track the biodegradation of plastics in soils. Modern agriculture uses a lot of plastic, especially in the form of mulch film that farmers use to cover field soils. This keeps the soils moist for crops, suppresses weeds and promotes crop growth.
Environment - Earth Sciences - 18.10.2022 
How rusting iron removes arsenic from water
In many regions of the world, groundwater is contaminated with arsenic of natural origin. The harmful substance can be filtered out of water with the help of iron. researchers have for the first time made visible exactly what happens in this process in a new type of experimental set-up. When metallic iron corrodes, i.e. rusts, iron oxides are formed that can strongly bind pollutants such as arsenic.
Environment - 10.10.2022 
With new ponds against amphibian extinction
Nature conservation pays off: amphibians benefit from new ponds - despite many causes of endangerment that still affect them. This is what researchers from WSL and Eawag found in a joint study using data from amphibian monitoring in the canton of Aargau. The study was published in the scientific journal PNAS.
Environment - Life Sciences - 07.10.2022
Environment - Life Sciences - 22.09.2022 
How nanoplastics enter the aquatic food web
The smallest of all plastic particles have remained largely unexplored until now, because they could not be detected in the environment. Now researchers at Eawag show: Nanoplastics stick to slimy biofilms, which can for example be found on stones in streams or rivers. When freshwater snails feed on the slime, the nanoplastics are taken up.
Environment - Earth Sciences - 11.08.2022 
Fluoride in groundwater: global map shows all risk areas for the first time
As an additive in toothpaste, it protects our teeth from decay. But when fluoride occurs in nature in larger quantities and accumulates in groundwater, it can become a hazard for our health. For the first time, scientists have produced a detailed map of global fluoride contamination in groundwater and shown which regions of the world are particularly affected.
Life Sciences - Chemistry - 18.07.2022 
Virtual fish instead of animal testing
As part of a new national research programme that aims to replace animal experiments in research, the National Science Foundation is supporting a project at Eawag. This opens up new possibilities for determining the toxicity of chemical substances based solely on tests with cultured cells and computer models.
Health - Life Sciences - 18.07.2022 
Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 mutations thanks to wastewater sampling and bioinformatics
A study published today in Nature Microbiology highlights the great advantage of wastewater monitoring as being rapid, unbiased and cost-effective: the detection of genomic variants of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater offers an early alert and can be based on fewer samples as compared to clinical samples. The bioinformatics tool developed by the groups of Niko Beerenwinkel and Tanja Stadler (ETH, Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering) in collaboration with Eawag and EPFL identifies variants of concern even at low abundance.
Environment - Innovation - 07.07.2022 
«A holistic view of the catchment area is needed»
On 15 September, after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, an Eawag Info Day will be held once again, dedicated to new technologies for monitoring surface waters. Physicist Damien Bouffard, Head of the Aquatic Physics Group at Eawag, was involved in its conception and explains in an interview what new opportunities and challenges these technologies bring.
Environment - Agronomy / Food Science - 16.06.2022 
Responses to climate change: Carefully weigh up the consequences for water bodies
It is no secret that climate change has a serious impact on the quality and ecology of aquatic environments. Researchers at Eawag have revealed that human responses to climate change are just as impactful on our water systems - for example, in the areas of agriculture and hydropower. When thermometers in California recorded scorching temperatures in the summer of 2000, even the salmon in Klamath River felt the effects.
Environment - Earth Sciences - 31.05.2022 
Water treatment plants would be ready for the removal of nanoplastics
The biologically active, slow-flow sand filters of lake water treatment would remove nanoplastics from the raw water very efficiently. This was shown both in the laboratory and in larger, realistic tests and modelling. It's a hot topic, at least on social media: tiny plastic particles allegedly end up not only in oceans and lakes, but also in drinking water - and, yes, even in bottled mineral water.
Environment - Earth Sciences - 09.05.2022 
Assess and predict the quality of drinking water
Oliver Schilling is newly appointed Professor of Hydrogeology at the University of Basel, where he is setting up a research group that is also associated with the Eawag Water Resources and Drinking Water Department in Dübendorf. This dual affiliation is perfect, says Schilling. Oliver Schilling spends most of his working time at the University of Basel, where he has been gathering his research group around him as a new assistant professor of hydrogeology since the beginning of March.
Chemistry - Environment - 04.05.2022 
Urine treatment: from trial and error to exciting innovation
What has been a purification process in wastewater treatment plants for decades can also be used decentrally or semi-centrally as a recycling process for nutrients. Early separation of "solid and liquid" plays a key role here. It allows for flexible solutions in terms of process technology, especially in the treatment of urine.
Environment - Pharmacology - 02.05.2022 
Bioassays evaluate ozonation and post-treatment of wastewater
Through wastewater, rivers and lakes are polluted with numerous micropollutants which originate from care products and pharmaceuticals, among other things. The Waters Protection Act therefore aims to expand Swiss wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) with the addition of a further treatment step. In pilot tests, two processes have proven particularly successful in the removal of trace substances: ozonation and treatment with activated carbon.
Environment - Computer Science - 26.04.2022 
Less animal testing thanks to machine learning
Countless chemical substances, including fertilisers and pesticides but also pharmaceutical substances and industrial products, leak into groundwater, lakes and rivers. "We want to know what the impact of these chemicals is on aquatic species, and whether they are toxic or not," says Marco Baity-Jesi, Head of the Eawag Data Science Group.
Health - Environment - 14.04.2022 
Chlorine in drinking water influences children’s intestinal flora
Chlorine is deadly for many microorganisms and is therefore used to disinfect drinking water. But what does chlorinated water do to the intestinal flora of young children, which yet has to develop? An international team led by Amy J. Pickering from University of California in Berkeley and Timothy R. Julian from the Swiss Aquatic Research Institute Eawag examined stool samples from 130 children from a larger study in Bangladesh (see box).
Environment - 12.04.2022 
Recovering energy from faeces
The difference couldn't be starker: In Switzerland, 97 per cent of households are connected to central wastewater treatment plants, whereas three billion people worldwide have no connection to a sewage system at all - predominantly in low-income countries. Understandably, these two very different realities call for different solutions when it comes to sewage disposal.
EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
Results 21 - 40 of 203.
New technologies in the water sector can contribute to the flexible and sustainable development of urban water management and the sustainable utilisation of water as a resource. In a recent article in the journal Aqua & Gas, a team of researchers from the aquatic research institute Eawag shows what opportunities and risks are associated with this.
Researchers at Eawag recommend setting up a monitoring system for antibiotic resistance in the synthesis report of the National Research Programme NRP 72 Antimicrobial resistance, similar to the wastewater monitoring for Sars-CoV-2. Antibiotic resistance endangers human and animal health worldwide. In order to be able to introduce effective measures against antibiotic-resistant pathogens, it is important to have detailed knowledge of the current situation and how resistances are spreading in the environment.
Terrestrial and aquatic food webs respond differently to changes in the environment. Understanding these differences is fundamental to identifying the species most important to an ecosystem and to effectively protecting biodiversity. This is shown by a study led by the research institutes Eawag and WSL and published in the journal Nature Communications .
Researchers at ETH Zurich and Eawag have developed an approach to accurately record and fully track the biodegradation of plastics in soils. Modern agriculture uses a lot of plastic, especially in the form of mulch film that farmers use to cover field soils. This keeps the soils moist for crops, suppresses weeds and promotes crop growth.
In many regions of the world, groundwater is contaminated with arsenic of natural origin. The harmful substance can be filtered out of water with the help of iron. researchers have for the first time made visible exactly what happens in this process in a new type of experimental set-up. When metallic iron corrodes, i.e. rusts, iron oxides are formed that can strongly bind pollutants such as arsenic.
Nature conservation pays off: amphibians benefit from new ponds - despite many causes of endangerment that still affect them. This is what researchers from WSL and Eawag found in a joint study using data from amphibian monitoring in the canton of Aargau. The study was published in the scientific journal PNAS.
Alpine fish biodiversity is amazingly young
A high fraction of the endemic biodiversity of the Alps is very old. The endemics - species found only in a confined area - have developed over the past millions of years during the cycles of glacial and interglacial periods or even before these cycles began. Fish, however, are an exception: most endemic fish species emerged only after the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago.
A high fraction of the endemic biodiversity of the Alps is very old. The endemics - species found only in a confined area - have developed over the past millions of years during the cycles of glacial and interglacial periods or even before these cycles began. Fish, however, are an exception: most endemic fish species emerged only after the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago.
The smallest of all plastic particles have remained largely unexplored until now, because they could not be detected in the environment. Now researchers at Eawag show: Nanoplastics stick to slimy biofilms, which can for example be found on stones in streams or rivers. When freshwater snails feed on the slime, the nanoplastics are taken up.
As an additive in toothpaste, it protects our teeth from decay. But when fluoride occurs in nature in larger quantities and accumulates in groundwater, it can become a hazard for our health. For the first time, scientists have produced a detailed map of global fluoride contamination in groundwater and shown which regions of the world are particularly affected.
As part of a new national research programme that aims to replace animal experiments in research, the National Science Foundation is supporting a project at Eawag. This opens up new possibilities for determining the toxicity of chemical substances based solely on tests with cultured cells and computer models.
A study published today in Nature Microbiology highlights the great advantage of wastewater monitoring as being rapid, unbiased and cost-effective: the detection of genomic variants of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater offers an early alert and can be based on fewer samples as compared to clinical samples. The bioinformatics tool developed by the groups of Niko Beerenwinkel and Tanja Stadler (ETH, Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering) in collaboration with Eawag and EPFL identifies variants of concern even at low abundance.
On 15 September, after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, an Eawag Info Day will be held once again, dedicated to new technologies for monitoring surface waters. Physicist Damien Bouffard, Head of the Aquatic Physics Group at Eawag, was involved in its conception and explains in an interview what new opportunities and challenges these technologies bring.
It is no secret that climate change has a serious impact on the quality and ecology of aquatic environments. Researchers at Eawag have revealed that human responses to climate change are just as impactful on our water systems - for example, in the areas of agriculture and hydropower. When thermometers in California recorded scorching temperatures in the summer of 2000, even the salmon in Klamath River felt the effects.
The biologically active, slow-flow sand filters of lake water treatment would remove nanoplastics from the raw water very efficiently. This was shown both in the laboratory and in larger, realistic tests and modelling. It's a hot topic, at least on social media: tiny plastic particles allegedly end up not only in oceans and lakes, but also in drinking water - and, yes, even in bottled mineral water.
Oliver Schilling is newly appointed Professor of Hydrogeology at the University of Basel, where he is setting up a research group that is also associated with the Eawag Water Resources and Drinking Water Department in Dübendorf. This dual affiliation is perfect, says Schilling. Oliver Schilling spends most of his working time at the University of Basel, where he has been gathering his research group around him as a new assistant professor of hydrogeology since the beginning of March.
What has been a purification process in wastewater treatment plants for decades can also be used decentrally or semi-centrally as a recycling process for nutrients. Early separation of "solid and liquid" plays a key role here. It allows for flexible solutions in terms of process technology, especially in the treatment of urine.
Through wastewater, rivers and lakes are polluted with numerous micropollutants which originate from care products and pharmaceuticals, among other things. The Waters Protection Act therefore aims to expand Swiss wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) with the addition of a further treatment step. In pilot tests, two processes have proven particularly successful in the removal of trace substances: ozonation and treatment with activated carbon.
Countless chemical substances, including fertilisers and pesticides but also pharmaceutical substances and industrial products, leak into groundwater, lakes and rivers. "We want to know what the impact of these chemicals is on aquatic species, and whether they are toxic or not," says Marco Baity-Jesi, Head of the Eawag Data Science Group.
Chlorine is deadly for many microorganisms and is therefore used to disinfect drinking water. But what does chlorinated water do to the intestinal flora of young children, which yet has to develop? An international team led by Amy J. Pickering from University of California in Berkeley and Timothy R. Julian from the Swiss Aquatic Research Institute Eawag examined stool samples from 130 children from a larger study in Bangladesh (see box).
The difference couldn't be starker: In Switzerland, 97 per cent of households are connected to central wastewater treatment plants, whereas three billion people worldwide have no connection to a sewage system at all - predominantly in low-income countries. Understandably, these two very different realities call for different solutions when it comes to sewage disposal.
