Eawag

Plants and water can mitigate heat in cities. Using Zurich as a case study, Eawag researchers tested a climate model which indicates how large the effect of green and blue spaces is. The model supports urban planning and shows where improvements would be particularly effective.

In view of biodiversity loss, it is important that early-career researchers get involved not only in science but also contribute to biodiversity policy.

The near-natural landscaping of the green spaces around the Eawag buildings in Dübendorf not only promotes biodiversity, but also offers employees and visitors an attractive environment in which to spend time. Because of this, Eawag has now been awarded the certificate for near-natural company premises by the Natur & Wirtschaft (Nature & Economy) Foundation. 

A nuclear waste storage facility needs to be secure, even if glaciers were to churn down from the Alps into the midlands in a distant future. This is why Nagra arranged for a study of the sediments that had been deposited in former, deep glacial lakes. The layers are around 600,000 years old, making them much older than the last ice age, which was around 24,000 years ago. Good news for Nagra: it seems that the layers of stone lying beneath have not been eroded by ice since that time.

The European Research Council is supporting the MEMELAND research project of a European research team with over 13.5 million euros. Nathalie Dubois from Eawag is a member of the group. The aim is to provide a new narrative for European environmental history, offering decisive insights for sustainable agriculture and climate protection in Europe.

In times of climate crisis and food shortages, the cultivation of microalgae is a promising solution that could fundamentally change the way we produce animal feed, bioplastics or biofuel. However, the enormous potential is still largely untapped, which is partly due to undeveloped cultivation methods. One of the challenges is to protect the cultures against pests. A new publication by Eawag now shows that co-cultures of different microalgae are more resistant to pests than monocultures.