Universitat de Barcelona
Universitat de Barcelona is a university that is part of the pulse of the water sector. Here we bring together everything it publishes on Smart Water Magazine: its news, its blogs and the events it takes part in.
Superhydrophobic particles offer promising method to tackle emerging pollutants in water
Emerging pollutants are compounds — microplastics, oils, dyes, pharmaceuticals, plasticizers, etc. — that end up in aquatic ecosystems and can pose an environmental and health risk. These pollutants, which are related to human activities, can be found in wastewater, and removing them represents a scientific, technological and societal challenge. Now, a study led by the […]
Remains of artificial turf is an important source of pollution of the aquatic environment
Researchers have analyzed samples collected from the sea surface of the Catalan coast and the Guadalquivir River.
Detecting the impact of drought on plants with user-friendly and inexpensive techniques
Climate change is aggravating the impact of droughts —one of the factors that only affect plant physiology— on all plant ecosystems worldwide. Although new tools have been developed to detect and assess drought stress in plants —transcriptomic or metabolomic technologies, etc.— they are still difficult to apply in natural ecosystems, especially in remote areas and […]
Microplastic pollution threats the world’s coastal lagoons
Globally, the coastal lagoons of Lagos (Nigeria), Sakumo (Ghana) and Bizerte (Tunisia) —close to large urban centres and without waste and sewage treatment systems— are among the most affected water ecosystems of this nature by microplastic pollution. However, the highest concentrations of microplastics have been detected in Barnes Sound and other small lagoons in a […]
Melting permafrost increases the emission of greenhouse gases in Arctic lakes
Groundwaters that circulate through the subsoil as a result of the melting permafrost can transport carbon dioxide and methane —gases with a strong greenhouse effect— to Arctic lakes and this increases the effects of climate change. This process of transporting gases to the lakes, which culminates with their emission into the atmosphere, is now quantified […]
Impacts of floods and droughts increase worldwide
Risk management has reduced the vulnerability to floods and droughts around the world, but their impact is still increasing worldwide, according to a study published in the journal Nature, which includes the participation of the researcher María del Carmen Llasat, professor of Atmospheric Physics at the Faculty of Physics and member of the Water Research Institute (IdRA) of the […]
UB team analyses the impact of climate change in dry and hot periods in the Pyrenees
A team of the University of Barcelona has analysed for the first time what the dry and hot periods could be like in the area of the Pyrenees depending on different greenhouse emission scenarios. The results, published in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, show that under an intermediate scenario, where these emissions […]
Posidonia marine seagrass can catch and remove plastics from the sea
Posidonia oceanica seagrass –an endemic marine phanerogam with an important ecological role in the marine environment- can take and remove plastic materials that have been left at the sea, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. The article’s first author is the tenure-track 2 lecturer Anna Sànchez-Vidal, from the Research Group on Marine Geosciences of […]
SARS-CoV-2 detected in waste waters in Barcelona on March 12, 2019
COVID-19 was announced in Wuhan (China) in early December in 2019 and it would reach every place worldwide later, including Europe. The first case in Europe was announced in France in late January 2020. This chronology on the evolution of the disease can change according to a study led by the University of Barcelona, in […]