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Using a simple but ingenious strategy, a research team has successfully demonstrated how water quality downstream of wastewater treatment plants is influenced by a single pharmaceutical manufacturing site: as variations in the concentrations of compounds over time are dependent on production cycles, it is possible to distinguish between industrial and household emissions – even a long way downstream.

Contaminated waste water often flows into rivers and streams after heavy rains. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thus also enter the waters. Eawag is researching exactly which ones and in what amounts as part of a national research programme.

The theme to this year’s UNESCO World Water Day is “Water and Climate Change”. Environmental scientist Martin Schmid, who is Head of the Eawag Group Applied System Analysis in the Surface Waters Department, talks about how climate change is impacting on waterbodies in Switzerland.

The ETH Board is strengthening the interdisciplinary biodiversity research of WSL and Eawag in order to find answers to the urgent social challenges of species loss as quickly as possible.

Host and parasites are often engaged in an evolutionary arms race. Researchers at Eawag have intervened in this warring relationship and demonstrated how it can be used to improve biological pest control.

In the project "LeCo - "Legionella control in buildings", a number of research groups have joined to tackle the legionella issue in a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary research project. Project leader Frederik Hammes explains why this is so important.

Inhalation of legionella bacteria – which thrive in warm water – can cause illness: in a new project, an Eawag-led multidisciplinary research team is investigating how the risks associated with these bacteria can best be managed.

Precipitation varies substantially in terms of location and time. With climate change increasing this variability, urban stormwater systems are also affected – not least in Switzerland. How exactly their performance may change has been investigated by Eawag researcher Lauren Cook in the dissertation she has written at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA).

Geochemist Denise Mitrano received this year’s SNSF Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship. This fellowship enables her to establish her own research group at the ETH Zurich as an assistant professor. She would like to use this opportunity to get one step closer to her career goal: to become a full professor.

Degradation products of the fungal agent chlorothalonil are found widely in groundwater on the Swiss Plateau, even in places where it is used as drinking water. Dealing with these substances is becoming a challenge for waterworks. There is a wide range between rash immediate measures and concealing the problem. An Eawag fact sheet serves to contribute to an objective discussion and longer-term strategies.