Science communication

Mapping the Future of Freshwater: An Interview with Niko Wanders on the World Water Map Project

Bettina Schaefli and Niko Wanders November 14, 2024

Back in 2022, two hydrologists and water resources specialists from University of Utrecht launched the World Water Map in collaboration with the National Geographic Society and ESRI. Based on the outputs of their global hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB, the team of Marc Bierkens and Niko Wanders map global water resources and identify the regions most at risk of water scarcity. The maps combine stat ...[Read More]

Public engagement in science: how to position ourselves?

Bettina Schaefli May 30, 2024

Back of my laptop, conveying some of my values

The recent student protests against the war in Gaza reminded all of us that being a member of the academic community requires us to reflect upon our role in society. In Switzerland, the university occupations (see SwissInfo) led to several open letter-type reactions from academic staff, either supporting the protests or on the contrary, recalling that scientists should abstain from activism. This ...[Read More]

Historical evolution of water management: the example of Switzerland over 200 years

Jeanine Janz, Christian Binz and Manuel Fischer April 25, 2024

(source: © eawag)

How can we use and manage natural resources more sustainably? This question stands at the core of many social, political and scientific debates about how we can reach the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The targets are ambitious, and there is a growing consensus that rapid and extensive structural change is needed in various sectors simultaneously. However, how transformation ...[Read More]

Thirsty Earth: a multiplayer online game for water resources education and research

Lauren E. McGiven and Marc F. Müller March 7, 2024

Image: Winter at Little Rann. Kutch, Dec’22, Credit: Kandukuru Nagarjun, License: CC BY 2.0 DEED License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en image url: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parched_earth_(52554483693).jpg

The Rising Need for Interdisciplinary Literacy The sustainable management of water resources requires cooperative institutions whose development are rarely included in already overloaded engineering and earth sciences curricula. The resilience of such institutions in the context of climatic and demographic change is also poorly understood. Enter “Thirsty Earth,” an online open-access m ...[Read More]