Explore the causes and effects of water contamination, including microplastics, chemicals, and stormwater runoff. Learn how to protect lakes, rivers, and freshwater resources.
The Balkan nations have poor waste management programs, and tons of garbage routinely end up in rivers, including the occasional washing machine or computer screen. A broken barrier this week caused a massive buildup of garbage on the Drina that has threatened Bosnia’s Visegrad dam. Officials say that between 6,000 and 8,000 cubic meters of
Lee County Hyacinth Control manages aquatic plants in our waterways using several different methods. The mechanical weed harvester is an eco-friendly method clears widespread vegetation so boats can navigate through our canals. Run off in Cape Coral canals comes from many places. It could be your street, your roof or your lawn. The recycled water
It’s a familiar sight to residents living on the shores of Kitsap Lake in Washington: each summer, around the beginning of June, a bright green algae begins to creep across the water. These blooms can be harmful to people and pets and have forced closures of Kitsap Lake and its beaches every year for the
Spraying chemicals can be dangerous to the environment in many ways. But for Floridians, they can contribute to harmful algae blooms and damaging releases along the coast. There are other ways to remove invasive plant species that may not require chemical spraying. James Douglass, an environmental scientist at Florida Gulf Coast University says the other
Biologists in Cornwall have found that chemicals released in the ocean from plastic can lead to deformities in marine animals. The study by biologists from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter’s Penryn Campus found that plastics in the ocean can release chemicals that cause deformities in sea urchin larvae. Read More
Seagrass meadows are widespread in shallow coastal waters and are involved in trapping and binding sediment particles that form the seabed. These seagrass meadows also provide important ecosystem services and benefits, such as water quality improvement; CO2 absorption; climate change mitigation; sediment production for seafloor and beach stabilization; coastal protection; nursery and refuge areas for
More than 25 years ago, biologists in Arkansas began to report dozens of bald eagles paralyzed, convulsing, or dead. Their brains were pocked with lesions never seen before in eagles. Birds were dying at lakes and reservoirs throughout the southeast, and at every lake Susan Wilde, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Georgia, Athens
Our carbon dioxide emissions are making the oceans more acidic. As we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a portion dissolves into the world’s oceans. Once there, the carbon dioxide goes through a series of chemical changes that have an acidifying effect on seawater. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and through photosynthesis. Underwater
Around 83% of green turtles and 86% of loggerhead turtles found off the coast of Queensland were found to have plastics within them, a study from Deakin, James Cook and Murdoch universities found. Researchers examined the contents of the stomach, intestines, cloaca and bladder of stranded or captured turtles collected from the Indian Ocean off
Two new Trash Hunters launched by DC Water this week will help scoop up floating trash and debris from the Anacostia River, making the waterways cleaner and more enjoyable. These boats a big investment by DC Water to reclaim our rivers. They will literally be pulling tons of trash out of the Anacostia and Potomac