Water Resources

Community-based hydropower — such as pico, micro, and mini hydro — has provided socio-economic and environmental benefits to thousands of off-grid communities in the Asia Pacific, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, long before central grids have reached them. Dipti Vaghela was recently interviewed by International Rivers on key aspects of community-scale micro hydropower (MHP).

Check out the books authored, edited or co-authored by Switzer Fellows in 2021 and dive into topics such as Indigenous teachings, the biology of climate change and sustainable urban planning.

Robinson (Wally) Fulweiler presented Coastal Ocean's bold vision for conducting ocean science in a talk at TEDx Boston.

Three Rivers Waterkeeper has nominated the Monongahela River (the Mon) for Pennsylvania's River of the Year, with a $10,000 prize for holding events to celebrate the river if won.

This three-year project, dubbed Toxic Tides, is the first systematic look at the environmental justice ramifications of sea level rise and hazardous sites along the entire coast of California.

Millions of poultry died and thousands of pigs and their waste was washed into local waterways by the millions of gallons, with negative impacts for the health of environmental justice communities and local ecosystems.

The Arctic cryosphere is collapsing, posing overlapping environmental risks. In particular, thawing permafrost threatens to release biological, chemical and radioactive materials that have been sequestered for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. As these constituents re-enter the environment, they have the potential to disrupt ecosystem function, reduce the populations of unique Arctic wildlife and endanger human health.

As the first large-scale Marine Protected Area (MPA) in areas beyond national jurisdiction, the Ross Sea region MPA sets a precedent for design, adoption, and implementation of other MPAs on the high seas. Together with a team of co-authors, Cassandra Brooks recently published a paper in Marine Policy that highlights the strong management in place within the Ross Sea region MPA, including research and monitoring.

Karen Merritt was part of an environmental engineering study resulting in a proposed settlement to clean up mercury contamination in the Penobscot River.