New fellowship supports global water research

With water-related challenges on the rise around the world, there is a splash of good news. A newly established Ivanhoe Foundation Endowed Fellowship will support UW graduate students who are gearing up to tackle some of the most pressing water-related challenges in developing countries. Addressing complex water-related challenges around the globe requires creative problem-solving and the ability to translate cutting-edge research into real-world solutions, according to the Ivanhoe Foundation.

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Jun 7, 2019

Fueled by floods: Cambodian people's food security threatened by hydropower demands

Along the Mekong River in Cambodia, UW researchers are racing to determine how hydropower demand will impact the supplies of rice and fish — and the communities who rely on them.

Only one-third of the world’s longest rivers remain free-flowing, new analysis finds

Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington.WSDOT

Just over one-third of the world’s 246 longest rivers remain free-flowing, according to a new study published May 8 in Nature. Dams and reservoirs are drastically reducing the diverse benefits that healthy rivers provide to people and nature across the globe. A team of 34 international researchers from McGill University, World Wildlife Fund, the University of Washington and other institutions assessed the connectivity status of 12 million kilometers of rivers worldwide, providing the first-ever global assessment of the location and extent of the planet’s remaining free-flowing rivers.

Assessing riverside corridors — the ‘escape routes’ for animals under climate change — in the Northwest

A black bear walks along the South Fork Flathead River in Montana.

Under climate change, plants and animals will shift their habitats to track the conditions they are adapted for. As they do, the lands surrounding rivers and streams offer natural migration routes that will take on a new importance as temperatures rise. An open-access study led by the University of Washington pinpoints which riverside routes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana will be the most important for animals trying to navigate a changing climate.

Many Arctic lakes give off less carbon than expected

Northeast Alaska’s Yukon Flats region, seen with fall colors.

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. One consequence of that trend is the thawing of permafrost, a layer of earth that has remained frozen for thousands of years in some areas. This frozen soil and vegetation currently holds more than twice the carbon found in the atmosphere. As permafrost across northern Alaska, Canada, Siberia and other high-latitude regions thaws, microbes in the soil consume organic materials, releasing carbon dioxide or methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas, into lakes and the atmosphere.