Land & water

Applying modern film scanning technology and machine learning to a rare trove of historical airborne radar measurements could provide new insights about how Antarctica’s ice sheets will change in a warming world.

Global warming and land use practices, such as farming, could change the environment for microbes living in the soil and alter the amount of greenhouse gases they release into the atmosphere.

Mysterious patches on the planet’s core that dampen seismic waves could be the result of ancient seawater chemically reacting with iron under extreme conditions.

Research with SLAC’s X-ray laser simulates what happens when a meteor hits Earth’s crust. The results suggest that scientists studying impact sites have been overestimating the sizes of the meteors that made them.

The satellite and supercomputer are the rock hammer and compass of modern geoscientists whose research spans the gamut from climate change projections and earthquake simulations to energy resources optimization.

With a new web-scraping and search algorithm and real water utility data, Stanford researchers have shown a relationship between media coverage of the recent historic California drought and household water savings.

The land under our feet and the plant matter it contains could offset a significant amount of carbon emissions if managed properly.

A new study demonstrates a cost-effective strategy to combat climate change by paying farmers in Uganda to conserve and plant trees.

A new web portal puts four years of California drought data into an interactive format, showing where regions met or missed water conservation goals. The idea is to motivate awareness and conservation.

A new analysis of regional drought and land-use changes in Syria suggests water conditions in downstream Jordan could get significantly worse.

Stanford environmental engineers have developed a planning tool called AquaCharge that helps urban water utilities develop efficient, cost-effective systems to replenish aquifers.

Stanford researchers show that lake sediments preserved within ancient supervolcanoes can host large deposits of lithium, which is critical for modern technology.

Excess nutrient pollution to U.S. waterways increases the likelihood of events that severely impair water quality. 

A flash of green laser followed by pulses of X-rays, and mere nanoseconds later an extraterrestrial form of ice has formed. The miniature crystal reveals how water solidifies under high pressures, like those expected in icy comets, moons and planets.

Stanford Earth’s Rosemary Knight recently spearheaded a project to map underground freshwater resources and forecast the intrusion of saltwater into aquifers beneath the California coastal town of Marina.

Stanford Earth’s Dustin Schroeder researches new ways of observing, understanding, and predicting the configuration of ice sheets using ice-penetrating radar data.

Studying how and why bridges have collapsed in the past identifies the limitation of current risk assessment approach and demonstrates the value of new perspectives on climate change impact.

Over-pumping groundwater has drastically and permanently reduced the water storage capabilities of land in one of California’s most important farming areas.

Multinational companies are increasingly looking to Africa to expand production of in-demand commodity crops such as soy and oil palm. A first-of-its-kind study highlights the real and potential impacts on the continent’s valuable tropical forests.

Stanford climatologist Noah Diffenbaugh explains why heavy rains during a drought are to be expected for a state in the throes of climate change.

Scientists use Earth-imaging technologies to study the intrusion of saltwater into freshwater aquifers along the California coast.

Research by Stanford Earth's David Lobell and George Azzari shows how better mapping of farm fields with satellites can lead to new ways to measure and boost crop yields.