91��������

Toxins in lake bottom may become available to food web

Mixing toxic coal ash into acid mine drainage may sound like an odd recipe for an environmental solution, but a new 91��������-led study finds that it can neutralize the drainage’s dangerously low pH and help reduce harmful impacts on downstream ecosystems—if you use the right type of ash. Using the wrong type of ash can create new contamination and not tame the drainage’s extreme acidity.

PhD student Renata Poulton Kamakura has been working with Duke Landscape Services and undergraduate students in the Theory and Applications of Sustainability (ENV 245) course to determine how the more than 17,000 trees on the 91�������� campus benefit sustainability—including their effect on carbon sequestration and stormwater mitigation.

When it comes to making communities and businesses greener, re-thinking the “little” stuff we often take for granted—like zoning, logistics and cement—can yield big benefits.

Producing energy from fossil fuels uses or contaminated much more water than previously estimated, a new book by two Duke researchers shows.

Duke researchers implement a large water sampling campaign in rural Sri Lanka, aiming to discover the origins of a cluster of chronic kidney disease cases.

New research finds nearly 75% of the seafood exported to China is processed there and ‘re-exported’ to global markets as Chinese products, making it hard to track its sustainability and verify it’s labeled accurately, but also gutting the economies of small fishing communities worldwide that can no longer compete.

McDonald’s CEO and Duke alumnus Chris Kempczinski (AB’91) spoke with Toddi Steelman (PhD ’96), Stanback Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, about ways the corporation is working to drive climate action, create circular solutions to reduce waste and further its commitment to our planet.

Shannon Switzer Swanson MEM'15 hosts the documentary, “The Last Drop.”

The Duke Aquafarm is Duke’s other “campus farm,” where students grow oysters instead of produce and learn how the tasty bivalves could help take a bite out of coastal pollution.

In "Streams of Revenue: The Restoration Economy and the Ecosystems It Creates,” Martin Doyle chronicles and analyzes the history, implementation and environmental outcomes of stream mitigation banking, one of many widely used market-based approaches to conservation.

The proliferation of pits and ponds created in recent years by miners digging for small deposits of alluvial gold in Peru’s Amazon has dramatically altered the landscape and increased the risk of mercury exposure for indigenous communities and wildlife, a new study shows.

91�������� researchers have created a new online resource designed to help local governments, conservation groups, businesses and other stakeholders identify the best technologies to clean up plastic pollution in our oceans or prevent it from getting there in the first place.

Groundwater depletion in parts of the High Plains is so extreme that peak grain production in some states has ended and production is now declining, a new 91��������-led study by a team of international scientists finds.

Small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon poses a health hazard not only to the miners and communities near where mercury is used to extract gold from ore, but also to downstream communities hundreds of kilometers away where people eat mercury-contaminated river fish as part of their diet.