Water

Hundreds of millions of people lack access to safe water and sanitation. Will the first U.N. conference on water in nearly 50 years make a difference?

A near-record amount of snow in California could ease some water restrictions after years of climate-change-fueled drought

A collaboration helped convince policy makers at COP27 to finally prioritize water as a critical resource affected by climate change. It was a win long in the making

A visualization compares the forms of Earth’s largest flows of ice

Officials say climate change is driving an increase in dry wells in drought-stricken California

To prevent devastating droughts and floods, humanity can tune in to natural solutions to repair water cycles that human development has disrupted

Science in meter and verse

The World Meteorological Organization warns that climate-related shortages in water resources could affect two thirds of the world’s population by midcentury and will be felt unevenly

“Paleo valleys,” carved by ice age rivers and now underground, could provide spaces to recharge California’s depleted groundwater

The Clean Water Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that has fundamentally changed water pollution in the U.S., is under attack when it should be strengthened instead

Millions of miles of U.S. rivers have dramatically improved in the half-century after the Clean Water Act, but climate change and other types of pollution still pose threats

As the new term begins, the Supreme Court debates what wetlands should be protected under one of the EPA’s most successful and controversial efforts