Archive News

March 16, 2017Switzerland’s surface waters contain vast amounts of thermal energy which could be used for heating or cooling. Based on numerous studies, Eawag scientists have now estimated the ecological impacts of thermal use. 

March 14, 2017Over 8000 pharmaceuticals, with more than 3000 active substances, are currently authorized in Switzerland. Transformation products – arising from biological and chemical degradation processes – can sometimes be more toxic to aquatic organisms than the parent compounds; they may also be problematic as a result of their higher mobility. 

March 9, 2017The water footprint indicates how much water is used to produce consumer goods. A study by Eawag scientists shows that there is a need for standardization in assessments of the grey water component. Comparability is impaired, for example, by the use of different water quality standards. 

March 2, 2017Lenny Winkel, group leader of Environmental Inorganic Geochemistry within the Department Water Resources & Drinking Water and professor at ETH’s Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, was selected to be the European Association of Geochemistry (EAG) Distinguished Lecturer 2017. 

February 28, 2017Tove Larsen has been appointed adjunct professor at DTU, the Technical University of Denmark. Tove Larsen is group leader in the department of Urban Water Management and member of the Directorate at Eawag. Her ties with DTU go back to the early stages of her career, where she graduated in Chemical Engineering at DTU and obtained her PhD at DTU Environment. 

February 21, 2017As a result of climate change, concentrations of the trace element selenium in soils are likely to decrease. Because the selenium content of crops may also be reduced, the risk of selenium deficiency could be increased in many regions of the world. This was shown by a recent study which used data-mining to model the global distribution of selenium.

February 16, 2017Humans influence evolution. In the case of whitefish in Swiss lakes, one consequence of this is replacement of a diversity of specialised species by fewer generalists. A recent analysis now suggests that communities of diverse specialists utilise trophic resources more efficiently.

February 10, 2017Periodic oscillations of bottom-water oxygen concentrations can alter benthic communities and carbon storage for decades, reveals a new study published in Science Advances. This is particularly relevant as low oxygen conditions are on the rise in the world’s oceans.

February 10, 2017No less than 500 new species of cichlids, brightly coloured perch-like fish, evolved in Lake Victoria (East Africa) over the past 15,000 years – a record in the animal and plant world. This evolutionary puzzle has now been solved by scientists from Eawag and Bern University.

January 10, 2017Hanspeter Zöllig has been awarded the 2016 Otto Jaag Water Protection Prize for his dissertation entitled “Electrolysis for the Treatment of Stored Source-Separated Urine”, which examined how electrolysis can be employed to recover nitrogen from urine. The prize recognises excellent PhD theses and masters dissertations in the fields of water protection and hydrology.