Water resources articles from across Nature Portfolio

Chemicals of emerging concern threaten health and the environment, necessitating effective water treatment. This study clarifies the water-health-environment nexus and suggests approaches to align drinking water with health and sustainability goals.

Water scarcity is a growing challenge in a warming world. This study examines how climate change may exacerbate water scarcity, showing the importance of robust water management strategies to address increasing scarcity.

Water scarcity is intensifying in China, India, and the USA, with growth in unsustainable water demand equaling or outpacing that of total water demand. These nations are increasingly relying on water in already stressed regions to meet their needs.

From 2002 to 2021, about 64% of land precipitation contributed to terrestrial water storage, highlighting the intricate relationship between precipitation, land surface processes, and climate change, according to analysis of satellite geodesy observations and a new metric to quantify the transformation of precipitation into terrestrial water storage.

The global drought community and policy representatives gathered at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s 16th Conference of the Parties (UNCCD COP16) in Riyadh in December 2024 to discuss the urgent need for improvements in assessing and quantifying drought risks, in developing and implementing transformative solutions, and in boosting policy actions and investments. Only through unprecedented global cooperation can we facilitate pathways towards drought-resilient futures.

Solar interfacial desalination could enable the sustainable production of freshwater, but scale-up remains challenging. Now, analysis of the efficiency and costs of a large-scale interfacial desalination system operating outdoors over nearly four months suggests that scale-up is associated with high capital investment and a lower water production rate compared with laboratory-scale devices.

Climate strategies focus primarily on carbon, largely ignoring the destabilized water cycle that’s amplifying disasters and accelerating climate change. Slow Water projects can reverse this trend.

We have the tools and solutions we need to address shared water challenges in a changing climate; however, we lack the political will to implement them through effective cooperation.

Monitoring the presence of antimicrobials in the environment is essential to understand and tackle the rise of antimicrobial resistance. An extensive investigation of antimicrobials in wastewater treatment facilities across Australia reveals a direct correlation with various socioeconomic factors.