Alfalfa fields—which one of the authors (B.L.G.) grew up irrigating—flank a stream in northeastern Wyoming. Climate change is altering streamflows and the agricultural practices that depend on them in this area and across the U.S. West. Credit: Beatrice L. Gordon

Scientists drill off Cape Cod and uncover vast undersea aquifers that may reshape our water future.

A new USGS tool integrates information about water availability in individual watersheds at a national scale. St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, seen here, is part of the Mississippi Watershed. Credit: Mississippi Watershed Management, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

Anyone who has ever been told to lower their sodium intake knows they have to cut back on the usual salty suspects, from potato chips to deli meats. But the water you drink to wash down these snacks may also be part of the problem, experts say. Each year, widespread wastewater runoff, agriculture, oil extraction […]

The research boat _Aage V. Jensen_ sails in front of the Greenland Ice Sheet in 2023 during a research trip to measure the impacts of a freshening Arctic. Credit: Henry C. Henson

_Tree Water_ debuted in the _WILDLAND_ exhibition in early 2025 at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, Calif. It used four video projectors with layered soundscapes to spatially represent a grove of trees and a creek bed. In the darkened space, footage of pigments flowing in water artistically animated the process of rainwater entering soil, roots, branches, and eventually,…