American Scientist

In the 2019 special issue on The Future of Water, scientists address everything from draining aquifers and the loss of the ecosystems they harbor, to cleaning up contaminants in freshwater, to the use of water as a weapon. But there's a lot of research related to water that we simply could not fit in the special issue. Fortunately, American Scientist has a long history of covering water issues. If you'd like to read further on this important topic, we've gathered a selection of our recent print and online articles on water issues, organized by subject area.

Art

• Walking the Edge of the Earth
  Eve Mosher’s art project HighWaterLine takes climate science to the streets.
  Leila Christine Nadir
  
  
• Spiral Jetty
  Changeable, perhaps even erasable, by time, how permanent should Earth art be?
  Robert Louis Chianese

Astronomy

• The Imprecise Search for Extraterrestrial Habitability
  How can scientists hunt for alien habitats without defining life?
  Kevin Heng
  
  
• A New Window on Alien Atmospheres
  The James Webb Space Telescope, originally intended for scanning the outer reaches of the cosmos, is now expected to break new ground exploring exoplanets.
  Kevin Heng
  
  
• In the Zone
  A new method promises to reveal extrasolar planets orbiting in their suns' habitable zones
  Katherine J. Mack
  

Biology and Ecology

• Where the Xingu Bends and Will Soon Break
  A hotly contested megadam threatens an incubator for evolutionary diversity in Brazil.
  Mark Sabaj Perez
  
  
• Ecological Responses to Climate Change on the Antarctic Peninsula
  The peninsula is an icy world that's warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, threatening a rich but delicate biological community.
  James B. McClintock, Hugh Ducklow, and William Fraser
  
  
• Renewed Hope for Coastal Marshes in Louisiana
  Before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, ecological monitoring of the Gulf of Mexico’s saltmarshes was minimal. Now we are learning what can be saved or restored.
  Paige Byerly, Bethann G. Merkle, Megan Hepner
  
  
• Wetlands: Climate Change, Restoration, and Management
  As the climate changes, wetlands around the world experience major shifts in their functioning that can put biodiversity and ecosystem services at risk. Understanding these changes can enable better wetlands management and restoration.
  Katie L. Burke
  
  
• Banking on Mitigation
  New regulations might change the landscape of national wetlands policy.
  Amos Esty
  
  
• The Evolution of Cave Life
  New concepts are challenging conventional ideas about life underground
  Aldemaro Romero
  
  
• Not Just Going with the Flow
  Modern visualization techniques show that aquatic animals can modify their fluid environment to increase the efficiency of swimming and food collection.
  Frank Eliot Fish, George Lauder
  
  
• Tardigrades
  These ambling, eight-legged microscopic “bears of the moss” are cute, ubiquitous, all but indestructible and a model organism for education.
  William Randolph Miller
  
  
• Aquatic Invasive Species: Lessons from Cancer Research
  Medicine’s successes offer a model for preventing the spread of harmful species
  Adam Joel Sepulveda, Andrew Ray, Robert Al-Chokhachy, Clint Muhlfeld, Robert Gresswell, Jackson Gross, Jeff Kershner
  
  
• Amphibious Caterpillars
  Hawaii hosts the first-known insects that are equally happy living underwater or on dry land
  Fenella Saunders
  
  
• Lessons of the Lost
  Amphibians are all but gone, bequeathing us lessons that must not be squandered
  Joseph R. Mendelson
  
  
• The Phenotypic Plasticity of Death Valley's Pupfish
  Desert fish are revealing how the environment alters development to modify body shape and behavior.
  Sean C. Lima
  
  
• Angling for Ancient Fish
  Gars and bowfins were once seen as trash fish, but are beginning to be appreciated by anglers and researchers.
  Solomon David
  
  
• La Vie en Rose
  You might think that farming salmon would relieve pressure on wild populations. But, in fact, it only makes things worse.
  David Schneider

Chemistry

• Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Quality
  First Person: Avner Vengosh
  Katie L. Burke
  
  
• Ice Entwined
  Frozen water takes on intricate multi-helixed shapes when confined in tiny spaces at high pressures
  Fenella Saunders
  
  
• Elemental Energy
  New polymers get their power from moisture.
  Fenella Saunders
  
  
• Bonding to Hydrogen
  The simplest molecule, made for connection
  Roald Hoffmann
  
  
• Little Interactions Mean a Lot
  Noncovalent bonds are weaklings compared to familiar chemical reactions, but they add up to strongly influence the shape and behavior of molecules.
  Roald Hoffmann

Engineering and Technology

• The Hand-in-Hand Spread of Mistrust and Misinformation in Flint
  The water crisis not only left infrastructure and government agencies in need of cleaning up; the information landscape was also messy.
  Siddhartha Roy
  
  
• Flint Water Crisis Yields Hard Lessons in Science and Ethics
  Q&A with Virginia Tech civil engineer Marc Edwards on uncovering the water crisis in Flint, Michigan and Washington, DC and his efforts to keep it from happening again.
  Katie L. Burke
  
  
• Natural and Unnatural Disasters
  Reflections on a city made possible and made vulnerable by reliance on technology
  Brian Hayes
  
  
• The State of Our Infrastructure
  National and state report cards are one measure of progress or decline.
  Henry Petroski
  
  
• Thomas Telford
  One of Great Britain's foremost engineers built both to carry water and to cross it
  Henry Petroski
  
  
• Real-Time Flood Forecasting
  We've learned to predict typhoons. What is required to predict the floods they bring?
  Chintu Lai, Ting-Kuei Tsay, Chen-Ho Chien, and I-Ling Wu
  
  
• Persistently Clean?
  Antimicrobials accumulate in the municipal sludge used to fertilize crops
  Christopher Brodie
  
  
• Geothermal Energy
  Alternative energy lies right beneath our feet.
  Henry Petroski
  
  
• Hoover Dam Bypass
  A bridge’s design becomes a special challenge when it shares scenery with an engineering icon
  Henry Petroski

Ethics, History, Sociology, and Policy

• Watching Earth Change
  Catherine Clabby
  
  
• Water News: Bad, Good and Virtual
  Rational thinking about water may be key to ensuring a clean, plentiful supply.
  Vaclav Smil
  
  
• Scientists in the Wake of the Hurricanes
  After a devastating storm season, researchers are seeking better ways to rebuild and support their most vulnerable colleagues.
  Katie L. Burke
  
  
• The Persistence of Memory: John Rosenthal’s Photographs of the Lower Ninth Ward
  Dianne Timblin
  
  
• Tracking the Karakoram Glaciers
  A photographer creates images of present-day glaciers from the same vantage point as that of historic photographs
  Catherine Clabby

Geography

• The Arctic’s Melting Ice
  Mark Serreze discusses the implications of warming in the Arctic and his thoughts on science communication while the U.N. climate talks in Paris continue.
  Katie L. Burke
  
  
• Gifts and Perils of Landslides
  Catastrophic rockslides and related landscape developments are an integral part of human settlement along upper Indus streams
  Kenneth Hewitt

Geology

• The Geology and Geography of Floods
  A Q&A with a research geologist on landscape evolution, flooding, and the intersection of landscapes and people.
  Katie L. Burke
  
  
• That Sinking Feeling
  Dense development can complicate projections of land subsidence in coastal regions.
  Catherine Clabby
  
  
• Jöklhlaup
  The spectacle of an Icelandic glacial flood
  David Schoonmaker
  
  
• The Deadly Dynamics of Landslides
  They result from a simple mix of gravity, friction, and momentum, but take on a stunning variety of forms—with similarly diverse human consequences.
  Susan W. Kieffer
  
  
• The Historic Turns of a River
  Laser-mapping technology makes visible the meanderings of Oregon's Willamette River over the past 12,000 years.
  Sandra J. Ackerman
  
  
• If Not for Plants, Could Rivers Bend?
  Geologists strengthen the case that early rooted plants engineered the look of modern rivers
  Catherine Clabby
  
  
• The Pump Don't Work
  "Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink."
  David Schoonmaker

Hydrology, Limnology, Glaciology, and Oceanography

• The Increasing Problem of Nutrient Runoff on the Coast
  As development increases along coastlines worldwide, water quality—and everything that depends on it—degrades.
  Ashanti Johnson and Melanie Harrison
  
  
• The Shrinking Glaciers of Kilimanjaro: Can Global Warming Be Blamed?
  The Kibo ice cap, a "poster child" of global climate change, is being starved of snowfall and depleted by solar radiation
  Phillip W. Mote and Georg Kaser
  
  
• Runaway Devils Lake
  In the wake of climate change, a North Dakota lake swells without regard for people or property and with no easy fix in sight.
  Douglas Larson
  
  
• Up a Lazy River
  Meandering through a classic theory of why rivers meander
  Brian Hayes
  
  
• "Reliably Safe"
  The history of one problematic dam in Oregon teaches how not to manage risk
  Douglas Larson
  
  
• The Battle of Bull Run
  When science meets politics and policy, the outcome may depend more on values than on objectivity
  Douglas Larson

Medicine, Public Health, and Toxicology

• Arsenic, the 'King of Poisons,' in Food and Water
  Levels of this poisonous element can far exceed the US Environmental Protection Agency's water standards in common foods such as rice.
  Andrew Yosim, Kathryn Bailey, and Rebecca C. Fry
  
  
• Climate Change and Cholera
  Research from many fields is uncovering important connections.
  Sandra J. Ackerman
  
  
• The Blue Baby Syndromes
  Did environment or infection cause a blood disorder in newborns?
  Roger P. Smith
  
  
• Ivermectin and River Blindness
  Science and philanthropy put an end to blindly following the next generation
  Philip A. Rea, Vivian Zhang, Yelena S. Baras

Meteorology, Atmospheric Science, and Climate Science

• Energy-Water Nexus: Head-On Collision or Near Miss?
  Energy production requires water, and clean water requires energy. How will we overcome this feedback loop in a warming, increasingly crowded world?
  Kristen Averyt
  
  
• First Person: Lance Bosart
  Modern weather forecasting
  Katie L. Burke
  
  
• The Coriolis and the Commode
  The truth about toilet swirl?
  Tom Di Liberto
  
  
• Key Internet Connections and Locations are at Risk from Rising Seas
  Maps that combine projections of sea-level rise with networks of internet infrastructure show extensive flooding within decades.
  Carol Barford

Physics

• The Formation of Snow Crystals
  Subtle molecular processes govern the growth of a remarkable variety of elaborate ice structures
  Ken Libbrecht
  
  
• Flowers and Ribbons of Ice
  Beautiful, gravity-defying structures can form when water freezes under the right conditions.
  James Richard Carter
  
  
• A Fish of an Idea
  Analyzing swimming schools of fish inspired a California biophysicist to try to improve the performance of wind turbines
  Catherine Clabby