Impoverished agricultural communities in Central Valley, California have been plagued for decades by contaminated drinking water. This is the result of more than five decades in which chemical fertilizers, animal wastes, pesticides and other substances have infiltrated aquifers, seeping into the groundwater and eventually into the tap. 20% of public water systems in Tulare County [...]

Algal blooms are currently choking up several rivers in South Korea. Environmentalists blame The Four Major Rivers Restoration Project, which was completed last October at a cost of 22 trillion won (US$19+ billion), for this. The algal bloom covers the Han, Geum, Nakdong and Yeongsan rivers. The project built 16 dams and dredged up 520 [...]

Using computer simulations, engineers at MIT have developed a new graphene-based desalination system that uses sheets of graphene with precisely sized holes, improving permeability and working hundreds of times faster than current techniques at the same pressure. The availability of fresh water is dwindling in many parts of the world, a problem that is expected [...]

This year, more than a third of the world will suffer from shortages of potable water. This number is expected to rise by 50% by 2025 and that’s one of the reasons why the desalination techniques of seawater are so important, because they will allow coastal communities to address local shortfalls. The new technology was [...]

In a recent study, radium was measured in untreated source water in wells from aquifers that are used for public and domestic water supply. This is the first nationwide study to identify factors that make an aquifer susceptible to radium contamination and researchers found that radium levels are determined by the chemical attributes of the [...]

Having too much naturally occurring fluoride in the water supply can result in darkening or mottling of the teeth and bowed legs or deformed knees or arms in children. Researchers are looking to solve the dental fluorosis and skeletal fluorosis problems that affect people in countries like Africa. By using tools and raw materials readily [...]