In the upper reaches of a Minnesota watershed, the water is so full of dissolved nitrous oxide that University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign hydrologist Zhongjie Yu

What if farmers could not only prevent excess phosphorus from polluting downstream waterways, but also recycle that nutrient as a slow-release fertilizer, all without spending a lot of money? In a first-of-its-kind field study, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers show it’s possible and economical. 

What happens to ibuprofen after it eases your throbbing headache? Like many pharmaceuticals, it can remain in an active form when our bodies flush it out. That’s a problem, because although wastewater treatment plants are good at reducing nutrient pollutants in water, they aren’t designed to remove pharmaceuticals and personal care products.

Midwestern soils are among the most productive in the world, thanks in part to extensive tile drainage systems that remove excess water from crop fields. But water isn’t the only thing flowing through tile drains. Nitrogen moves along with soil water into drainage ditches, streams, and ultimately into the Mississippi River Basin, where the nutrient contributes to massive algal blooms and hypoxic conditions that impact aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The loss of nutrients into Illinois’ lakes, streams, and rivers harms water quality here and downstream all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, NLRS, was established in 2015 and is designed to reduce nutrient pollution in Illinois’ waterways and the Mississippi River and its negative impacts by exploring and recommending practical, research-based nutrient loss practices and collaborating with partners across the state.  

URBANA, Ill. – Midwestern agriculture contributes the vast majority of nitrogen in the Gulf of Mexico, causing an oxygen-starved hypoxic zone and challenging coastal economies. State and federal policies have tried for decades to provide solutions and incentives, but the hypoxic zone keeps coming back. A recent study from the University of Illinois offers a new way to understand Midwestern nitrogen dynamics and forecasts future nitrogen loads under various management scenarios across the region. 

Partnering with peers across three continents, ACES students worked to solve global water problems under the instruction of three lecturers located in Germany, Brazil, and the U.S.

URBANA, Ill. – You may not want to see algae spreading a green carpet on your favorite lake. But in toxic wastewater, tiny algal organisms become potent powerhouses that eat nutrients and produce oxygen, helping to convert poisonous sludge to reusable biomass.

A new study from the University of Illinois explores growth and viability of four different algae species in wastewater from biocrude oil production.

URBANA, Ill. – With threats of water scarcity complicating the need to feed a growing global population, it is more important than ever to get crop irrigation right. Overwatering can deplete local water supplies and lead to polluted runoff, while underwatering can lead to sub-optimal crop performance. Yet few farmers use science-based tools to help them decide when and how much to water their crops.

URBANA, Ill. – Australian pineapple, Danish trout, and Midwestern U.S. corn farmers are not often lumped together under the same agricultural umbrella. But they and many others who raise crops and animals face a common problem: excess nitrogen in drainage water. Whether it flows out to the Great Barrier Reef or the Gulf of Mexico, the nutrient contributes to harmful algal blooms that starve fish and other organisms of oxygen.