Tag Archive for: Research

Study: Warming Makes US West Megadrought Worst in Modern Age

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Seth Borenstein

A two-decade-long dry spell that has parched much of the western United States is turning into one of the deepest megadroughts in the region in more than 1,200 years, a new study found.

And about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.

Scientists looked at a nine-state area from Oregon and Wyoming down through California and New Mexico, plus a sliver of southwestern Montana and parts of northern Mexico. They used thousands of tree rings to compare a drought that started in 2000 and is still going — despite a wet 2019 — to four past megadroughts since the year 800.

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Removing the Novel Coronavirus from the Water Cycle

/in , , /by /YubaNet (Nevada City, Calif.)/UC Riverside

Scientists know that coronaviruses, including the SARS-CoV-19 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, can remain infectious for days — or even longer — in sewage and drinking water.

Two researchers, Haizhou Liu, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside; and Professor Vincenzo Naddeo, director of the Sanitary Environmental Engineering Division at the University of Salerno, have called for more testing to determine whether water treatment methods are effective in killing SARS-CoV-19 and coronaviruses in general.

The virus can be transported in microscopic water droplets, or aerosols, which enter the air through evaporation or spray, the researchers wrote in an editorial for Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, a leading environmental journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom.

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgent need for a careful evaluation of the fate and control of this contagious virus in the environment,” Liu said. “Environmental engineers like us are well positioned to apply our expertise to address these needs with international collaborations to protect public health.”

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Watch: Sensors Detect Water Pollution in Real Time

/in , /by /Electronics360by Siobhan Treacy

Researchers from San Diego State University have adapted existing sensor technology that can detect fluorescence, enabling rapid detection of bacteria in water.

The team’s plan was to combine this technology with telemetry to transmit contamination alerts in real-time. This technology would be useful for water monitoring agencies and government authorities. It can be used on surface water and water treatment plants.

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Researchers Look to Improve Leak Detection for the World’s Aging Water Pipes

/in , , /by /Inside Scienceby Catherine Meyers

Across the United States, underground labyrinths of leaky pipes lose more than a trillion gallons of water a year — and the problem is mirrored around the world.

“It’s a huge problem, especially in the cities,” said Daniel Tartakovsky, a professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford University in California. Tartakovsky and his former student Abdulrahman Alawadhi from the University of California, San Diego have proposed a way to improve a traditional method of detecting these leaks.

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California Scientists Study Climate Change at Bottom of the Ocean

/in , , /by /KPBSby Erik Anderson

California researchers have found that oxygen levels and water temperatures play a key role in the health of deep-sea fish populations. San Diego and Monterey Bay scientists studied fish on the floor of the Gulf of California.

“This is an example of some of the video that we are analyzing for this research,” said Natalya Gallo, a post-doctoral researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

She pointed to footage taken along the seafloor on the Gulf of California near the Mexican coast. The pictures come from a remotely controlled submarine. Researchers use the underwater tool to gauge the impact of a warming ocean on fish.

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UC Merced Researchers Working on Innovative Way to Desalinate Ag Water

/in , /by /ABC 30 News/KFSN (Fresno, Calif.)by Sara Sandrik

MERCED, Calif. (KFSN) — A new project at UC Merced is focusing on irrigation water.
The work could have a significant impact on the crops that are grown throughout the Central Valley.

“We’re trying to take two problems and come up with one solution out of the two of them. We have an excess of drainage water which has excess salt in it, and we need cooling of agricultural greenhouses,” says assistant professor James Palko.

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Bureau of Reclamation Awards $5.1 Million In Research For New Ways To Desalinate Water

/in , /by /EurekAlertby Alex Stephens

The Bureau of Reclamation announced that 30 projects will receive $5.1 million from the Desalination and Water Purification Research Program to develop improved and inexpensive ways to desalinate and treat impaired water.

“We are awarding grants to a diverse group of projects to reduce the cost, energy consumption and environmental impacts of treating impaired or otherwise unusable water for local communities across the country,” said Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman. “This funding is a direct result of the Trump Administration’s commitment to increase water supply and delivery through improved technology.”

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