Burrowed into streambeds and rarely moving for their decades-long lifespans, freshwater mussels are biomonitors, meaning they indicate how clean their environment is, according to Penn State researchers. 

Persistent overuse of water and long-term drought has depleted the Colorado River and highlighted the need for a comprehensive understanding of how waters are allocated and used to develop effective management strategies.

Texas A&M University researchers have developed a more accurate method for tracking reservoir evaporation rates that will improve water planning and management.

Humans may be accelerating the rate at which organic matter decomposes in rivers and streams on a global scale, according to a new study from the University of Georgia, Oakland University and Kent State University.

A rare fork fern found in the island nation of New Caledonia has become a world record holder.

A team of researchers in France from the “Pole MIAME” that gathers diadromous fish experts from multiple research institutions (OFB, INRAE, Institut Agro and UPPA) have developed a new modelling approach that accurately predicts core and unsuitable habitats of rare and data-poor diadromous fish (fish which migrate between marine and freshwater), such as threatened shads and the IUCN red-listed ‘critically endangered’ European eel.

A pioneering study has used extensive global datasets and machine learning to map the activities of seafloor invertebrate animals, including worms, clams and shrimps, across the entire ocean, revealing for the first time critical factors that support and maintain the health of marine ecosystems.

As much as 70% of California was covered by wildfire smoke during parts of 2020 and 2021, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.

Dozens of Alaska’s most remote streams and rivers are turning from a crystal clear blue into a cloudy orange, and the staining could be the result of minerals exposed by thawing permafrost, new research in the Nature journal Communications: Earth and Environment finds.

A recent boom in the purple sea urchin population off the southern Oregon Coast appears to have had an indirect and negative impact on the gray whales that usually forage in the region, a new study shows.