Found 46 results
Open Access
Article
27 March 2026Intra- and Inter-Watershed Variability in Benthic Macroinvertebrate Community Diversity, Taxa Richness, and Biotic Integrity: Citizen Scientist Sampling Within a Minnesota USA Region Dominated by Agriculture
Volunteer citizen scientists collected benthic macroinvertebrate samples from 35 streams throughout multiple watersheds in southeastern Minnesota, USA, during the period 1999–2013 to assess community diversity, taxa richness, and biotic integrity as indicators of water quality and general habitat conditions. In total, 452 invertebrate samples containing >46,000 organisms were collected, processed, and analyzed. Only 45% of the citizen scientists completed their 5-year sampling commitment. However, their samples generally demonstrated significant differences in total taxa richness, Ephemeroptera-Plecoptera-Trichoptera (EPT) taxa richness, Simpson and Shannon diversities, and a regional benthic index of biotic integrity (BIBI) within and/or among the watersheds examined. Streams in the two larger watersheds averaged significantly higher taxa richness and BIBI scores than those in smaller watersheds. Overall, streams in this region exhibited mostly poor or very poor biotic integrity based on their macroinvertebrate communities, indicating continued impacts from environmental stressors within these agricultural watersheds.
Open Access
Review
26 March 2026Sustainable Additive Manufacturing of Polymer Composites for Advanced Water Treatment: A Review
The increasing demand for clean water, coupled with growing concerns over energy consumption and environmental impact, has intensified the search for sustainable materials and fabrication strategies for water treatment technologies. Polymer composites have emerged as highly promising candidates due to their tunable chemistry, lightweight nature, and compatibility with functional fillers. At the same time, additive manufacturing (AM) offers unique advantages in terms of design freedom, material efficiency, and customizable architectures. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of sustainable polymer composites fabricated via additive manufacturing for advanced water treatment applications. Major AM techniques, including material extrusion, vat photopolymerization, material jetting, powder bed fusion, binder jetting, and sheet lamination, are critically evaluated with respect to their printability, design flexibility, and environmental footprint. Emphasis is placed on sustainable polymer matrices such as polylactic acid, polyhydroxyalkanoates, cellulose-based polymers, and recycled plastics, as well as eco-friendly fillers and functional additives, including biochar, lignin, chitosan, nanocellulose, clays, zeolites, hydroxyapatite, and functional nanomaterials (e.g., AgNPs, TiO2, ZnO, and graphene). The role of composite architecture, surface modification, and hierarchical porosity enabled by AM in enhancing adsorption, catalytic activity, and antimicrobial performance is highlighted. This review demonstrates that integrating sustainable materials with additive manufacturing enables the development of multifunctional, energy-efficient, and circular water treatment systems. The findings support the advancement of purification technologies aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 6, SDG 12, and SDG 13.
Open Access
Review
25 March 2026Towards an Integrated Future: Examining Water, Climate, and Gender Dynamics for Sustainable Development in Kenya
Kenya’s sustainable development is increasingly shaped by climate variability and climate change, which affect both the availability and quality of water resources. Existing research shows that these impacts are often gendered, particularly where women and girls hold primary household responsibilities for water collection and water-related care work. Literature also indicates that impacts differ substantially by location (arid versus highland versus informal urban settlements), livelihood system (pastoral versus agro-pastoral versus peri-urban), socio-economic status, and age. This study presents a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature examining how water stress, climate pressures, and gender dynamics intersect in Kenya. Three recurring themes emerge: first, climate change makes water supplies less safe, more expensive, and harder to predict. Second, social and political structures dictate who suffers most from these changes. Third, while women drive local climate adaptation and advocacy, they still lack a consistent voice in formal decision-making. The study concludes by identifying points of agreement and disagreement in current literature, while highlighting remaining evidence gaps regarding the shifting dynamics of climate, water, and gender relations in Kenya.
Open Access
Article
24 March 2026Integrated GIS–MCDA (AHP) Framework for Groundwater Potential Mapping in Humid, Structurally Complex Watersheds
Mapping the potential of groundwater is important for managing water resources in a way that will last, especially when the climate changes, land use changes, and water demand rise. This study examines the integration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methodologies, focusing on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), and illustrates their implementation in the Fork Fish Creek watershed, a humid Appalachian headwater basin in West Virginia, USA. Although GIS–AHP methodologies are extensively utilized in semi-arid areas, their efficacy in humid, structurally intricate mountainous environments is still inadequately investigated. Using expert-based AHP weighting and GIS-based weighted overlay analysis, six thematic parameters were combined: rainfall, geology and soil characteristics, slope, drainage density, land use and land cover (LULC), and lineament density. The appropriate AHP consistency ratio (<0.1) showed that the weights were reliable. The resulting groundwater potential map divided the watershed into three zones: Good (6.7%), Moderate (76.5%), and Low (16.8%). The prevalence of Moderate potential indicates the impact of fragmented topography and drainage configuration, which limit groundwater storage despite sufficient precipitation. Validation encompassed an evaluation of hydrogeomorphic consistency and an additional comparison with USGS monitoring-well depth data, so offering empirical corroboration for the Moderate-dominated distribution. The results show that groundwater potential patterns vary greatly from one place to the next. They also show how useful GIS–MCDA frameworks may be for assessing groundwater in humid, data-poor mountainous areas.
Open Access
Article
23 March 2026Integrating Copernicus Earth Observation and Artificial Intelligence for Habitat Suitability Modeling of Pinctada radiata in Semi-Enclosed Coastal Watersheds of Central Greece
Semi-enclosed coastal systems are highly dynamic environments where benthic organisms are exposed to strong hydrographic gradients and increasing anthropogenic pressures. This study assessed the habitat suitability of the pearl oyster Pinctada radiata in two contrasting Mediterranean gulfs of Central Greece, the Maliakos and the South Evoikos, by integrating Copernicus Earth Observation (EO) products with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) modeling framework. Environmental variables, including sea surface temperature, salinity, chlorophyll-a concentration, current velocity, and dissolved oxygen, were derived from satellite and marine datasets and used to train a multi-algorithm ensemble combining Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The ensemble model showed strong predictive skill (AUC = 0.94; TSS = 0.80) and identified temperature, dissolved oxygen, and substrate type as the main drivers of habitat suitability. Spatial projections indicated that roughly two-thirds of the study area currently supports favorable conditions for P. radiata, particularly in shallow, low-energy, mesotrophic zones. Under a simulated +2 °C warming scenario, highly suitable habitats declined by about 20%, highlighting the species’ sensitivity to future thermal stress and subsequent oxygen depletion, demonstrating the value of EO-driven AI approaches for anticipating ecological change in vulnerable coastal systems.
Open Access
Perspective
20 March 2026Water Does Not Negotiate: Hydrologic Legitimacy and the Institutional Future of Rural and Regional Development
Rural and regional development is often framed as an economic or service-delivery challenge, whereas water is treated as infrastructure or compliance. That separation is analytically convenient but operationally false. Hydrologic regime reality and water quality dynamics are non-negotiable physical constraints that quietly determine what rural communities can credibly promise, finance, permit, and defend over time. At the same time, many rural water systems and watershed programs operate within institutional arrangements that were not designed for slow hydrologic lags, cross-boundary pollutant legacies, or the legitimacy demands created by uneven exposure to risk. This perspective, therefore, suggests that rural development should be recentered on water governance: the coupled system of hydrologic processes, water-quality legacies, and organizational capabilities that together produce reliability, safety, and trust. Recent primary research is synthesized showing that (1) legacy nutrients and ecosystem memory create multi-decade time lags that can invalidate short political or funding cycles, (2) rural and small system compliance and exposure burdens remain structurally unequal, and (3) adaptive governance capacity depends on institutional fit, partnerships, and policy and planning choices that are themselves socially patterned. A practical agenda for scholars and practitioners is proposed: build hydrologic legitimacy by aligning project claims with hydrologic time, making governance fit explicit across scales, and treating organizational change capacity as core water and rural development infrastructure. The resulting framework provides decision-makers with operational guidance for aligning development claims, governance structures, and investments with hydrologic constraints that ultimately determine long-term feasibility and trust. Rather than presenting new empirical results, this Perspective synthesizes evidence from hydrology, water quality, governance, and organizational change to conceptually reframe rural and regional development around hydrologic legitimacy as a governing constraint.
Open Access
Article
06 February 2026Dialogue of Water Stories as a Methodology: Storytelling Water Struggles and Embracing Resonance in Lake Titicaca
This article presents conceptual and methodological reflections that have emerged from a participatory action research project in the binational Lake Titicaca region. The ecosystem faces critical degradation due to mining contamination and untreated wastewater, which has led to the establishment of a series of local initiatives, as the recent recognition of the lake as a rights holder in Peru. In this spectrum, the research sought to bolster local defense initiatives by facilitating internal spaces for dialogue and co-production of knowledge, and by exploring avenues for strengthening collective strategies to transform water-related conflicts. Central to this study is the “Dialogue of Water Stories”, a community-based methodological proposal that integrates theoretical and practical components of dialoguing and storytelling. The findings demonstrate that this methodology effectively articulates the discussion of conflicts, unpacking several perspectives from multiple stakeholders. In this case, this led to the revelation of a plurality of community water values and historical care practices—particularly those upheld by women—while generating resonance for regional water defense. The article proposes the “Dialogue of Water Stories” as a transformative methodological approach to narrating water struggles and inspiring socio-environmental change.
Open Access
Article
05 February 2026Geospatial Analysis of Energy Requirements for Supplying Desalinated Seawater to the Greek Territory
Greece confronts intensifying water scarcity driven by population growth, urbanization, tourism, and climate variability, despite its extensive coastline. Traditional sources are strained, with agriculture consuming ~80% of withdrawals (surface water ~38%, groundwater ~62%). Desalination, predominantly reverse osmosis (RO), offers a mature solution, already meeting 30–95% of domestic needs in Aegean islands, but its energy intensity challenge sustainability within the water–energy–food nexus. This study presents a geospatial framework to assess energy requirements for a hypothetical scenario in which seawater desalination fully supplies domestic water demand in Greece. High-resolution GIS data, WorldPop population grids, and hydrological networks enable estimation of daily demand (173 L/capita/day) and energy decomposition: desalination (SEC = 5 kWh/m3 SWRO), elevation pumping plus residual pressure (15 m head), and frictional losses. The hypothetical pipelines follow reverse natural drainage paths for realistic routing. Results highlight substantial spatial disparities: inland cities face significantly higher and more uniform energy costs (Ioannina: mean dynamic head 8.3 kWh/m3, ~43% higher than the coastal reference of Athens at 5.8 kWh/m3), driven by elevation and distance; coastal centres show lower means but greater variability (Athens: highest total ~3.35 GWh/day). In summary, fully supplying domestic water demand via desalination would necessitate an additional ~8% of the country’s total electricity consumption. Findings affirm desalination’s potential for coastal/island supply while revealing energy barriers inland.
Open Access
Article
23 December 2025Wave Effects on Large-Scale Turbulent Flow Structures Propagating in the Water Column
Tidal flow often contains large-scale turbulent flow structures mainly caused by bathymetric variations or offshore marine structures. Understanding how waves interact with these structures is crucial for ocean sciences, as they influence vertical mixing, energy transfer, and dissipation. In this work, two flow configurations with current and waves are studied in a flume tank using Particle Image Velocimetry measurements: waves propagate either following or opposing the current and interact with convected flow structures. Compared to current-only cases, the mean velocity is slightly impacted, but the mean velocity gradient increases for waves propagating with the current. Turbulent Kinetic Energy increases regardless of wave direction and its production is also affected by the wave’s propagation direction. The integral length scale and flow Gaussianity are the most affected flow parameters. For waves propagating against the current, the Probability Density Functions of fluctuating velocity fields exhibit a bimodal representation, largely deviating from a Gaussian curve. Preliminary quadrant analysis reveals that waves significantly influence flow organisation, especially when they propagate against the current. These observations are valuable for applications such as defining tidal turbine farm areas, improving turbine performance estimation, and assessing structural fatigue.
Open Access
Article
03 November 2025Sequential Thermal and Optical Upgrades for Passive Solar Stills: Toward Sustainable Desalination in Arid Climates
This study investigates the thermal performance and freshwater productivity of a passive single-slope solar still under four distinct configurations, aimed at enhancing distillation efficiency using low-cost modifications. The experiments were conducted in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia (28°23′50″ N, 36°34′44″ E), a region characterized by high solar irradiance ranging from 847 to 943 W/m2. The baseline system, constructed with a stainless-steel basin and inclined transparent glass cover, served as the control, achieving a cumulative distillate yield of 3.237 kg/m2/day and a thermal efficiency of 36.27%. Subsequent modifications included the addition of external reflective mirrors (Experiment 2), aluminum foil foam insulation (Experiment 3), and internal enhancements with side glass panels and internal aluminum mirrors (Experiment 4). Results demonstrated that the external mirror modification improved the distillate yield by 16% to 3.757 kg/m2/day, with a corresponding efficiency of 41.66%. However, insulation under dusty conditions led to a reduced yield of 2.000 kg/m2 and an efficiency of 25.18%, highlighting the critical influence of solar transmittance. The most notable improvement was recorded in the fourth configuration, which combined internal reflective elements and transparent side panels, resulting in a maximum yield of 4.979 kg/m2/day and thermal efficiency of 56.45%. These findings confirm that optical and thermal design enhancements can significantly augment the performance of passive solar stills, especially under high-irradiance, clear-sky conditions. The proposed modifications are low-cost, scalable, and suitable for implementation in remote and arid regions facing freshwater scarcity. This study offers valuable insights into the systematic optimization of solar distillation systems to improve sustainable water production.
