The world’s streams, rivers and lakes are under increasing stress because of human water management – and mismanagement – that threaten aquatic biodiversity and the water supply, Charles J. Vörösmarty said recently during the second annual John R. Mather Visiting Scholars Lecture.

Vörösmarty, professor of civil engineering with the City College of New York, presented “Global Water Crisis: The Slippery Slope” on May 3 at the University of Delaware's Roselle Center for the Arts.

“The contemporary water system is really defined increasingly by the actions of humans,” he said.

Despite unpredictable spring weather, Earth Week 2012 at the University of Delaware went off without a hitch, according to organizers. Yoga on the Green became Yoga in Perkins Student Center while the Race to Give Back’ became a race to get out of the rain, but robust attendance was observed at many events. Along with a book talk and multiple film screenings, participants had the opportunity to donate shoes through the Graduate Student Senate, swap clothes through Students for the Environment, and buy bicycles through the Newark Bike Project.

Too much of a good thing can kill you, the saying goes. 

Such is the case in the Chesapeake Bay, North America’s largest estuary, where an overabundance of nutrients fosters the formation of an oxygen-starved “dead zone” every summer. In its annual health report card last year, the bay earned only a D+.

Deb Jaisi, an assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware, wants to seek out the sources of a key nutrient so excessive that it has become a pollutant in the Chesapeake Bay — phosphorus (P). 

Janine Sherrier, professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Delaware, is part of a team that has been awarded $6.8 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the legume Medicago truncatula.

Several decades ago, precipitation in Delaware was among the most acidic in the country. Pollutants in the air reacted with rainwater to sprinkle sulfuric, nitric and carbonic acids onto the ground below, affecting crops and ecosystems statewide.

The scientific consensus is that pollution controls enacted through the Clean Air Act Amendments in the 1990s and other measures have helped decrease the acidity of rain by approximately 60 percent to less harmful levels, as reflected in data gathered nationwide and by UD researchers in Lewes, Del., as part of a longstanding study.

Ten University of Delaware students and recent alumni have received National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Program Fellowships. Numerous Nobel Prize winners are among past recipients of the prestigious award.

Reserved for outstanding students pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM), these NSF fellowships provide a three-year annual stipend of $30,000, plus a $10,500 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.

Scientists predict ocean temperatures will rise in the equatorial Pacific by the end of the century, wreaking havoc on coral reef ecosystems.

But a new study shows that climate change could cause ocean currents to operate in a way that mitigates warming near a handful of islands right on the equator.

Loss of biodiversity appears to affect ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to results of a new study by an international research team.