Negotiators for the seven states that rely on the Colorado River for nearly every aspect of life cannot agree on how to distribute its shrinking water supplies in the coming decades.
Environment
1 hour ago
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After a wet year and a push to conserve water in the Southwest, federal officials say the risk of the Colorado River's reservoirs declining to critically low levels has substantially eased for the next couple of years.
Environment
2 hours ago
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6
In the heart of California, at the place where two great rivers converge beneath the Tule fog, lies the linchpin of one of the largest water supply systems in the world.
Ecology
2 hours ago
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1
A more efficient way to capture fresh water from the air could be inspired by a phenomenon of motion first glimpsed in bowls of breakfast cereal.
General Physics
2 hours ago
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9
Not since 2015 has Washington's snowpack fallen so far below normal. Some regions of the state are preparing for another drought this summer. Others are still enmeshed in the drought that began last summer.
Environment
7 hours ago
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2
Deep sea and sediments bring iron to Antarctic waters. The iron that fertilizes the waters around Antarctica mostly comes from the deep, upwelling waters and the sediments around the continent.
Earth Sciences
21 hours ago
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34
Getting climate models to mimic real-time observations when it comes to warming is critical—small discrepancies can lead to misunderstandings about the rate of global warming as the climate changes. A new study from North ...
Earth Sciences
22 hours ago
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222
More than forty archaeological sites in Cyprus dating potentially as far back as the Bronze Age that were thought lost to history have been relocated by University of Leicester scientists working for the Ministry of Defence.
Archaeology
23 hours ago
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5
A Special Issue of the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology co-edited by Yale School of Public Health Associate Professor Dr. Nicole Deziel, Ph.D., presents the latest research on exposure, health, and ...
Environment
Mar 6, 2024
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1
Evaporation is a natural process so ubiquitous that most of us take it for granted. In fact, roughly half of the solar energy that reaches the Earth drives evaporative processes. Since 2017, researchers have been working ...
Nanophysics
Mar 6, 2024
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61
Water is a ubiquitous chemical substance, composed of hydrogen and oxygen, that is essential for the survival of many known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam. Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface. On Earth, it is found mostly in oceans and other large water bodies, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation. Saltwater oceans hold 97% of surface water, glaciers and polar ice caps 2.4%, and other land surface water such as rivers, lakes and ponds 0.6%. A very small amount of the Earth's water is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products. Other water is trapped in ice caps, glaciers, aquifers, or in lakes, sometimes providing fresh water for life on land.
Water moves continually through a cycle of evaporation or transpiration (evapotranspiration), precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea. Winds carry water vapor over land at the same rate as runoff into the sea. Over land, evaporation and transpiration contribute to the precipitation over land.
Clean, fresh drinking water is essential to human and other lifeforms. Access to safe drinking water has improved steadily and substantially over the last decades in almost every part of the world. There is a clear correlation between access to safe water and GDP per capita. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability. Water plays an important role in the world economy, as it functions as a solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances and facilitates industrial cooling and transportation. Approximately 70 percent of freshwater is consumed by agriculture.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
