A 17-year-old girl named Shreya Ramachandran recently founded a nonprofit organization teaching people to recycle water in their homes in California. She was inspired by the water shortages in the state’s Central Valley.
“I was talking to some of the people in the area whose wells completely ran dry, and they were left without water because they weren't connected to the central water grid. They were trucking water in for even basic needs,” she tells Discover. “I was really affected by their stories, and I wanted to do something to help.”
She researched ways to reuse graywater from sinks, showers and laundry machines to help people cope with droughts. She has won awards for the research and was named a finalist in the 2019 Google Science Fair. She’s also featured in an upcoming PBS documentary about climate change titled “The Power of Us.”
World's Largest Lakes Reveal Climate Change Trends
NASA-funded research on the 11 largest freshwater lakes in the world recently coupled field and satellite observations to provide a new understanding of how large bodies of water fix carbon, as well as how a changing climate and lakes interact.
Scientists at the Michigan Tech Research Institute studied the five Great Lakes bordering the U.S. and Canada; the three African Great Lakes, Tanganyika, Victoria and Malawi; Lake Baikal in Russia; and Great Bear and Great Slave lakes in Canada.
These 11 lakes hold more than 50% of the surface freshwater that millions of people and countless other creatures rely on, underscoring the importance of understanding how they are being altered by climate change and other factors.
Sixteen years of remote sensing data reveals that in Earth's largest freshwater lakes, climate change influences carbon fixation trends. Read more about the study’s findings here.
Beaver Rescued at Florida Treatment Plant
In other news, a beaver was recently rescued at a water treatment facility near Tallahassee, Florida, according to the Evening Express.
It had become trapped and disoriented, rescuers say. It will be released in beaver habitat on Upper Lake Lafayette after regaining its strength and fur quality, according to the St. Francis Wildlife Association.
The animal was cleaned off, given eye drops and had lacerations treated.
