Issues & Trends

Image copyright WATERISLIFE/Kristine Bender Image caption The next stage is to test the books in larger trials where they are used by local residents

A book with pages that can be torn out to filter drinking water has proved effective in its first field trials.

Humanity is rapidly depleting a third of the world's largest groundwater aquifers, with the top three most stressed groundwater basins in the political hotspots of the Middle East, the border region between India and Pakistan, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa.

CAMBRIDGE - Economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and improved the lives of many more over the last half-century. Yet it is increasingly evident that a model of human development based on economic progress alone is incomplete.

A record amount of electronic waste was generated last year, according to a United Nations University report.

NEW YORK - One year ago, I was in Brazil to launch the Brazilian chapter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), an initiative of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The main message I heard that day was that São Paulo was suffering from a mega-drought, but that state and local politicians were keeping it quiet.

BRASILIA, Brazil Brazil is experiencing a debilitating drought as the nation endures the driest period since South America’s most populous country began keeping records in the 1930s.

If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to freak out about the environment, that time is probably now.

The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2013, the greatest increase since 1984, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).