News archive

How much thermal energy from Swiss lakes can be exploited without having an impact on their ecosystems? Eawag was commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) to estimate the potentials with the larger lakes and rivers. Read more

River invertebrates react the same way to decreasing glacier cover wherever in the world they are, say scientists who have evaluated more than one million of them in diverse regions with shrinking glaciers, to determine the impact of global environmental change. Their findings are published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Read more

At its meeting on 13 and 14 December 2017, the ETH Board appointed Dr. Kai Udert as Titular Professor of ETH Zurich. Kai Udert works at Eawag since 2006 and is currently group leader within the Department Process Engineering and lecturer at ETH Zurich. His main research focus is on new technologies for resource recovery from wastewater. Read more

The EPFL has launched a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in collaboration with Eawag’s Sandec department and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The course is designed to shed light on the important role played by Public Health Engineers at times of humanitarian crisis, and how health risks can be mitigated. Read more

The composition of cyanobacterial communities in peri-alpine lakes has become increasingly similar over the past century. Climate warming and a period of eutrophication have favoured in particular potentially toxic species which can adapt rapidly to environmental changes. These are the findings of an Eawag-led study analysing DNA extracted from sediment cores. Read more

Inadequate access to safe sanitation in developing and emerging countries is one of the most pressing global challenges in the water sector, according to Eawag Director Janet Hering, who is interviewed in the latest issue of Aqua & Gas.  Read more

Michael Besmer has been awarded the 2017 Otto Jaag Water Protection prize for his thesis on “Monitoring short-term dynamics of bacterial concentrations in natural and engineered aquatic ecosystems”. The prize recognises excellent PhD theses and masters dissertations completed at ETH Zurich in the fields of water protection and hydrology.  Read more

Although nutrient inputs to Swiss lakes are today much lower than they were before the introduction of phosphate precipitation at wastewater treatment plants and the ban on phosphates in detergents, many lakes are still affected by oxygen depletion – especially in the deeper waters. Read more

During heavy rainfall, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are often unable to cope with the volumes of water arising, and some wastewater may then be discharged untreated into surface waters.  Read more

In collaboration with the Centre for Hydrogeology and Geothermal Energy at the University of Neuchâtel, Eawag recently organised a PEAK Course on the controversial topic of “Groundwater and Agriculture”. A major focal point of the information and discussions was the issue of nitrate pollution. Read more