News

The Water Institute is excited to announce its 2024-25 WaterTalks, a five-part speaker series designed to explore cutting-edge insights into today’s most pressing water challenges. This year’s lineup brings together leading experts who will share innovative approaches to water management, addressing complex issues like environmental risk, water contaminants, environmental justice, and advanced resource recovery.

We’re excited to announce the newly elected executive committee of the Society of the Water Institute Graduate Students (SWIGS) for 2024-25! After a successful election in July, the SWIGS team is ready to lead with fresh energy and innovative ideas.

The Water Institute is pleased to announce the launch of its 2024-25 WaterLeadership program.

Beth Grant, a master’s student in the School of Environment, Resources & Sustainability, is on a mission to better understand students’ emotional experiences in post-secondary environmental education.

Microplastics, pervasive pollutants in aquatic ecosystems, present a pressing challenge for researchers striving to understand and mitigate their impact. Amidst this challenge arises a new technology: microwave-microfluidic based sensors. This article delves into the transformative potential of these sensors in the realm of microplastic research.

You would be hard-pressed to find a corner of the world free from microplastics, plastic particles measuring less than five millimetres. They contaminate our drinking water, accumulate in the food we eat and have been found in the human body, including in blood, organs, placenta, semen and breast milk.

A School of Public Health Sciences research team, co-directed by Water Institute members Drs. Craig Janes and Warren Dodd, have been awarded more than $1.5 million through the federal government’s New Frontiers in Research Fund, which supports interdisciplinary and transformative research led by Canadians working with international partners. 

Strawberries could be fewer and more expensive because of higher temperatures caused by climate change, according to research from the University of Waterloo.  

In late June, the Council of the Great Lakes Region (CGLR) in collaboration with the Toronto Region Board of Trade, hosted the Great Lakes Sustainable Growth Forum. This significant event united leaders from various sectors to tackle critical challenges, explore how to responsibly grow the Great Lakes regional economy, and protect the Great Lakes - one of North America's key economic regions.

Two students from the faculties of Science and Mathematics are exploring new ways to bring cultivated seafood to the table. Kevin Shen (BCS ’24) and Rikard Saqe’s idea to apply computational modelling to understand how fish cells grow and transform, has earned them more than $700,000 in grants from the Good Food Institute (GFI), Mitacs and New Harvest to scale their research efforts.