With help from artificial intelligence, West Virginia University researchers are speeding up environmental scientists’ access to time-sensitive data about ecosystem health, allowing experts to respond rapidly to events like droughts or wildfires.

Decommissioning pipelines used by the oil and gas industry could result in substantial quantities of microplastics being released into the UK’s marine environment annually, a new study has suggested.

Irrigated mountain hayfields can act as large filtration systems that reduce sediment, phosphorus and other contaminants from runoff, sometimes improving the quality of water flowing back into the environment, Colorado State University research has found.

Growing up in New Jersey, Emily Wilson regularly passed tidal marshes without giving them much thought. They were part of the coastal landscape—stretches of green and blue she saw from the road.

It wasn’t until she began studying environmental science as an undergraduate that she realized how remarkable they were—plants thriving in salty, waterlogged environments amidst the constant ebb and flow of tides.

Today, as a Boston University PhD candidate in Earth & Environment, Wilson studies those same ecosystems—and has discovered that the plants she once drove past may hold important information to more accurately track the global climate.

Read more at: Boston University

Photo Credit: Emily Wilson, Boston University

How are butterflies in the Alps responding to rising temperatures?

A University of New Mexico research team spent several weeks in northern Alaska this summer studying how permafrost thaw may be changing water quality and the movement of carbon through Arctic watersheds.

The severe, drought-fueled fires now burning across much of the American West and Canada may be scorching forests so thoroughly that they cannot recover to the forests they once were, new research shows.

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers are working to determine whether Hawaiʻi-grown eucalyptus could become a reliable source of lumber for construction, helping reduce the state’s reliance on imported building materials while supporting healthier forests.

From the American West to Europe, droughts are drying up rivers, fueling destructive fires and reshaping ecosystems.

Botany professor Ansgar Kahmen has been studying Switzerland’s forests for years.