Rewetting and restoring 250,000 acres of southern pocosin peatlands that had been drained for farming but now lie fallow could prevent 4.3 million tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide, now stored in their soils, from oxidizing and escaping back into Earth’s atmosphere each year, a Duke University study shows. That amount equals 2.4% of the total annual reductions in CO2 emissions needed for the United States to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Mixing toxic coal ash into acid mine drainage may sound like an odd recipe for an environmental solution, but a new Duke University-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.

Human activities such as marsh draining for agriculture and logging are increasingly eating away at saltwater and freshwater wetlands that cover only 1% of Earth’s surface but store more than 20% of all the climate-warming carbon dioxide absorbed by ecosystems worldwide. A new study published May 5 in Science by a team of Dutch, American and German scientists shows that it’s not too late to reverse the losses.

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.

Coastal marshes that have been invaded by feral hogs recover from disturbances up to three times slower than non-invaded marshes and are far less resilient to sea-level rise, extreme drought and other impacts of climate change.

Joel Dunn (MEM’04) Helps Create America’s First National Marine Sanctuary in 20 Years

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

Recent Duke grad Alexandra DiGiacomo (BS ’20) is using drones to better understand how rising seas, warming waters and rapid development are killing protective saltmarshes at our coast, and what can be done to reverse the losses.

Sixteen years after the restoration of Upper Sandy Creek began, hundreds of species, some rare, now call the once-heavily eroded and degraded stream home, and nitrogen pollution flowing off Duke’s campus into downstream waters has been slashed by 75%.

When it comes to storing carbon during prolonged periods of drought and heat, wooded peatlands at low-latitudes have a three- to five-fold advantage over other peatlands. An ancient class of slow-growing fungi is the reason why.

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.

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 Duke University-led study by a team of international scientists finds.

Salt marshes, seagrass meadows and other coastal ecosystems are in rapid decline around the world. Restoring them is expensive and often unsuccessful. But an international team of researchers has discovered a way to sharply increase the odds of success by using biodegradable mats.