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Water

Via Getty: "Trees burned by the recent Bear Fire line the steep banks of Lake Oroville where water levels are low on April 27, 2021 in Oroville, California."

California’s Fire Season May Be Starting Early This Year

The state issued a ‘red flag’ fire warning on May 2, the first one issued in May since 2014, during a stretch of abnormally hot, dry and windy weather

Underwater archaeologists recovered 30 wooden poles used as supports for prehistoric pile dwellings.

Cool Finds

3,000-Year-Old Submerged Settlement Discovered in Switzerland

Traces of a prehistoric pile dwelling suggest humans inhabited the Lake Lucerne area 2,000 years earlier than previously thought

Hillary Hughes, Panamanian actress, visits the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Agua Salud Project during the filming of videos in Spanish and English to share hope for the success of tropical forest reforestation informed by the largest experiment of its kind in the tropics.

Smithsonian Voices

Watch These Two Videos and You Will Feel More Hopeful About the Future of Tropical Forests

Agua Salud’s new bilingual videos share the results of tropical reforestation experiments at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama

Shreya Ramachandran created her own nonprofit, The Grey Water Project, to educate and provide resources to diverse audiences on water recycling both at home and in the workplace.

Smithsonian Voices

Meet Water Advocate and Hero Shreya Ramachandran

The Grey Water Project educates and provides resources to diverse audiences on water recycling at home and in the workplace

A creek runs by moss-covered rocks not far From Sol Duc Falls in Olympic National Park. Researchers have found that listening to natural sounds like running water may benefit human health.

Listening to Nature Gives You a Real Rocky Mountain High

Sounds like birdsong and flowing water may alleviate stress, help lower blood pressure and lead to feelings of tranquility

The water high in salinity slowly poisons trees, and as they die, all that is left behind are ghostly gray trunks that resemble toothpicks.

‘Ghost Forests’ May Become More Common as Sea Levels Rise

East Coast woodlands are left parched as brackish water encroaches on landscapes

As the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere, the research team says it can rival the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in the South Pole.

Russian Scientists Sink Giant Deepwater Neutrino Telescope Into World’s Largest Freshwater Lake

In the depths of Lake Baikal, the observatory is designed to detect nature’s ghost particles

The Oyapock river, between Brazil and French Guiana, is one of the few waterways that a new paper identifies as being relatively undamaged by humans.

New Research

One-Third of Freshwater Fish Species Are at Risk of Extinction

Humans have severely damaged more than half of the world’s rivers

When conditions are right, Horsetail Falls transforms and emits an enchanting ember glow reminiscent of lava or falling fire.

Yosemite’s ‘Firefall’ Natural Wonder Illuminates El Capitan Through the End of February

Under the right conditions, viewers will have a short window of 10 minutes each evening to experience the glowing falls

Grōv Technologies’ vertical farm is designed to minimize land and water use of conventional feed production.

Could Indoor Vertical Farms Feed Livestock?

The people at Grōv Technologies think farmers can produce wheatgrass for their herds with less land and water using the method

An Evening Grosbeak sits on a branch covered in rime ice in Minnesota.

The Wintertime Wonder of Unusual Ice

Rime ice in the Midwest and hair ice in the United Kingdom have people wondering: Why does ice do that?

(Top row) Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg, Barron Ryan, Arturo Elizondo, (middle row) Samantha Pratt, Gitanjali Rao, Anitra Belle Henderson, (bottom row) Kennyjie, Andrea Ponti and Brett Phaneuf

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

Ten Innovators to Watch in 2021

These visionaries are imagining an exciting future with chicken-less eggs, self-piloting ships and more

The study found that the more dramatic changes in color were clustered around dams, agriculture and urban areas.

A Third of the United States’ Rivers Have Changed Color Since 1984, Satellite Images Reveal

The transformation from blue to shades of yellow and green raises concerns that waterways have been increasingly imperiled since 1984

Projects that harness the public to make observations and report data about the health of our environment are growing. Anyone can join—no PhDs needed.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

Twenty-Four Ways to Turn Outdoor Passions Into Citizen Science

Heading into the new year, consider collecting scientific data while skiing, hiking, surfing, biking and partaking in other adventures

An ice core extracted at El Malpais National Monument in New Mexico connects water collection to periods of droughts.

Cool Finds

Ancestral Puebloans Survived Droughts by Collecting Water From Icy Lava Tubes

In ancient New Mexico, cold air in cavernous spaces carved out by lava flows preserved blocks of ice

Coho salmon returning from its years at sea to spawn, seen near the Suquamish Tribe's Grovers Creek Hatchery.

New Research

Researchers Reveal Why Seattle Salmon Bite the Dust After Rainstorms

A chemical found in car tire debris washes off roads into waterways, killing coho salmon returning to spawn

A group of shrimp that have left the safety of the water to parade upstream in Thailand.

New Research

The Science Behind Thailand’s Great Shrimp Parade

New research begins to unravel the secrets of a strange natural phenomenon in which thousands of freshwater crustaceans march on land

Over the last 30 years, rainfall on Hawai'i's islands has decreased by 18 percent while the number of residents has doubled since the late 1950s, leading to a high demand for an already scarce resource.

New Research

Newly Discovered Underground Rivers Could Be Potential Solution for Hawai’i’s Drought

The reservoirs could provide twice as much fresh water to tap into

The Maya built the Corriental reservoir filtration system as early as 2,185 years ago.

Cool Finds

Researchers Uncover 2,000-Year-Old Maya Water Filtration System

The city of Tikal purified one of its reservoirs with technology comparable to modern systems

Scientists have known about ice in the dark, deep craters at the moon's poles, some of the coldest known places in the universe, but voyaging into one just wouldn't be likely.

New Research

The Moon Has More Water and Ice Hidden All Over Its Surface Than Originally Predicted

Scientists discovered that water is stored in tiny patches all across the moon’s surface, not just in the deep, freezing craters of its south pole

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