Berlin steers bathers away from dirty lakes with daily pollution updates

Though once the rivers were afoul with pollution and the carcasses of poisoned fish and the water from taps was too hazardous to drink, Denmark now boasts some of the world's cleanest drinking water and some of it's most comprehensive programs for good water management. The Danish government is looking to help other nations replicate their success, leveraging technology and collaboration to better manage water treatment and conservation for all.

In response to the growing concern about the world's water supply, a movement known in the United States as "One Water" has taken shape and is gathering momentum on a mission to halt floods, droughts and water pollution.

For years, campaigns to clean Nepal's polluted Bagmati River resulted in failure. Now with police and government backing, the organization Safai Abhiyaan is in its third year, attracting hundreds of volunteers who are willing to brave the polluted waters to collect trash. The program's unique approach to organizing community volunteers has been a success, but the problem will not subside until greater perceptions about litter and water pollution are tackled.

The state of Pennsylvania set to plant 86,000 hectares of riparian buffers, the practice of planting trees and shrubs along a river or stream to filter water. Other benefits of riparian buffers include things like restoring the soil and cooling the water. In order to meet their goal, the state scientists used a bottom approach, enlisting the help of local farmers by offering them grants to plant trees and showing farmers how they can profit off of riparian buffers. While the state is behind its goal, the state is planting about 1,000 to 2,000 hectares a year.

Indonesian villagers were experiencing water shortages as natural springs started to dry up in part due to climate change, so they installed infiltration wells to collect and absorb rainwater. Not everyone, at first, wanted to implement the wells on their property, but by 2020, there were 320 infiltration wells in Patemon village. This water conservation project is not being implemented throughout the rest of the country.

Zero Mass Water partnered with the Navajo Nation to bring water into the homes of rural residents who may not have easy access to a water source. Hydropanels that connect to a tap inside the home use sunlight to absorb enough water vapor to make at least 10 liters of water per day. While people at first were skeptical about the idea during a pilot test, the company and Navajo officials are hoping to scale the solution.

A group of farmers in India have been trained to monitor their village’s groundwater levels to help its residents make more informed decisions about irrigation based on water availability. The farmers-turned-researchers are known as “Bhujal Jaankars” and they monitor rainfall, dam water levels, and water quality to notify residents so they can plant crops that don’t require a lot of water. While there is a lack of gender diversity in the group, they are working on developing training to include more functional literacy skills to encourage participation from others.

After an abandoned copper mine destroyed the Tsolum River in Canada, it took decades and cross-sector collaboration to reduce acid runoff and bring back fish populations. The government, a restoration society, and even the mining industry worked together to come up with solutions to save the river. Their latest attempt — capping the mine waste with glacial sediment and an asphalt covering — in 2009 succeeded. In 2015, 129,000 pink salmon came back to the river — a record return since fish counts began in 1953.

Toxic green algae has become a prominent threat in Lake Erie, but local farmers are trying to reduce their footprint by limiting agricultural nutrient runoff from manure and fertilizer that is spread on their farm fields. From increasing transparency around agriculture practices to altering how fertilizer is distributed, early signs are showing success with these measures despite there still being a long ways to go.

With water scarcity becoming a reality for many cities, people are looking towards the premise of recycling stormwater into drinkable water collected from urban runoff. One major limitation of this is that the water often is too polluted for consumption, however researchers have piloted several new technologies that may hold the key to being able to scale the stormwater recycling solution.