Minimizing yield losses while reducing groundwater usage is a continual goal for Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists on the High Plains, where quantities of water from the Ogallala Aquifer are diminishing.

A 2014 study led by Dr. Wenwei Xu, AgriLife Research corn breeder in Lubbock, and Thomas Marek, AgriLife Research irrigation engineer in Amarillo, and contributed to by Texas Tech University graduate students Karl Brauer and Traci Bland, showed the biggest factor in corn silage quality was water.

The objective of this study, supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Ogallala Aquifer Program, is to determine if the brown midrib, or BMR, trait affects water use efficiency, as well as length of maturity and level of irrigation, Xu said. Read more

“Antiaromatic compounds” is what chemists call a class of ring molecules which are extremely instable—the opposite of the highly stable aromatic molecules. Because they exist for mere split seconds, they can only be detected by extremely demanding, ultra fast methods.

Together with colleagues from Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Mulheim, researchers from the Cluster of Excellence RESOLV at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum have succeeded in isolating the antiaromatic fluorenyl cation at extremely low temperatures in water ice. Thus, they were able to conduct a spectroscopic analysis for the very first time. Read more

Climate change will lead to water scarcity in large parts of Africa. But there is hope – on African rooftops.

Ghana is a densely populated country with high levels of poverty, and access to clean water is a problem for many people, whether they live in rural areas or in the many fast-growing towns.

“What this means is that the country is unable to supply all its inhabitants with sufficient clean water”, says researcher and social anthropologist Sigrid Damman at SINTEF. She is currently involved in the development of better water systems for the country, in order to ensure that people have more sustainable access to clean water. To this end, she has been working closely with economists and water researchers at SINTEF. Read more

Dear EarthTalk: I heard that a number of beer brewing companies have banded together to support the Clean Water Act. Can you enlighten?—Mitch Jenkins, Cincinnati

In April 2013 the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought together two dozen nationally respected craft beer brewers to launch the Brewers for Clean Water Campaign, which aims to leverage the economic growth of the craft brewing sector into a powerful voice for bolstering clean water protection in the United States.

“Whether brewers are creating ales, pilsners, porters, wits or stouts, one ingredient must go into every batch: clean water,” says Karen Hobbs, a senior policy analyst at NRDC. “Craft brewers need clean water to make great beer.” Read more

Nicaragua has announced the start of work on a new canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. At an opening ceremony, Wang Jing, the president of HKND, the Chinese company building the canal, said this moment would go down in history.

The 278km (172 mile) waterway will be longer, deeper and wider than the Panama Canal. But critics fear a negative environmental impact and doubt its viability and economic benefits.

The Grand Canal of Nicaragua, as it has been called, aims to rival Panama’s waterway and lift the country out of poverty. The opening ceremony was largely symbolic, as work began on an access road for machinery needed to build a port for the canal on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast. Read more