New low-cost monitoring and mapping techniques can identify multiple pollution sources and reduce related human disease and death.
pollution
The Give and Take of Mercury in Glacial Landscapes
As glacial ice melts, toxic mercury is released into the environment. But a new study shows vegetation may be an effective cleanup crew.
Indigenous Knowledge Puts Industrial Pollution in Perspective
A 3-year project documents how climate change is affecting the sequestration of decades-old mining by-products in Canadian lakes.
Is Chicago Water Pollution Halting a Silver Carp Invasion?
Pollution is definitely not the solution to stopping invasive silver carp, researchers assert. But cleaner waters could affect the invasion front.
Will Cigarette Butts Be Our Environmental Legacy?
People litter them by the trillions—but how long will butts last through the ages?
Solving the Global Nitrogen Imbalance
Excess nitrogen causes serious environmental problems, but too little can lead to food insecurity and unrest. A team of researchers proposes a five-pronged solution to our planet’s nitrogen woes.
Rivers Are a Highway for Microplastics into the Ocean
New research shows that rivers are the main road for all the plastic pollution that gets into the ocean, including microplastics.
Uncontrolled Chemical Releases: A Silent, Growing Threat
Uncontrolled releases of household, industrial, and agricultural chemicals during natural disasters pose an underappreciated hazard to humans and ecosystems. Here’s what we can do.
Gulf Dead Zone Looms Large in 2019
A new forecast predicts widespread hypoxia after a wet Midwest spring.
A North Carolina Lake’s Long Legacy of Coal Ash Spills
A new case study suggests that Sutton Lake has been contaminated by multiple coal ash spills, most of them apparently unmonitored and unreported.