This Perspective leverages waterbirds to establish a conceptual foundation for studying wildlife interactions with floating photovoltaics (FPVs), highlighting five key considerations to guide future research on FPV–wildlife interactions.

This Review establishes a comprehensive set of permeance–selectivity relationships for thin-film composite membranes on the removal and fractionation of different solutes and provides valuable strategies for enhancing the performance of membrane systems through both material-level and system-level optimizations.

This Perspective proposes strategies to develop and implement heterogeneous catalytic technologies for efficient PFAS mineralization.

Post-flood hospitalization risks exist and persist for months, with variations by climate type, flood severity, age, population density, and socioeconomic status.

Despite considerable attention, hygiene systems and practices remain inadequate where they are most needed. New thinking and innovative approaches are needed to develop, implement and evaluate hygienic systems to reduce pathogen exposure in high-transmission settings.

This Review discusses the potential of nanofiltration and reverse osmosis in the removal of disinfection by-products, highlighting the interactions among membranes and chemicals.

This Perspective highlights the uncertainties in assessing future drought severity, arising from conceptual misconceptions, methodological discrepancies and the limitations of Earth system models (ESMs) in accurately representing hydrological and ecological processes. A balanced approach that incorporates atmospheric drought indices can better improve the accuracy of drought assessments.

Understanding catchment hydrological functioning across the world is critical to providing theoretical support for large-domain model applications. A global assessment of catchment perceptual models reveals the role of climate, biomes, and landforms in controlling hydrological processes.

This Review synthesizes the ecological features and processes that arise when rivers are given room to move. Understanding these interactions will support more sustainable decisions that weigh river ecology against engineering in a rapidly changing world.

Research now demonstrates that solution-processable polymer membranes with hydrophilic subnanometre pores can selectively extract lithium ions from salt-lake brines, offering a potentially sustainable approach to meet the growing demand for lithium in energy storage applications.

Extreme weather events are increasingly linked to violence. A new study finds that exposure to floods increases risk of intimate-partner violence among women, especially among more vulnerable populations.

Membrane-based ion selective separation technology offers a promising solution for lithium extraction from brines. A counterion effect created by the design of positively charged ion transport channels of membranes exhibits a high-speed transport pathway for lithium-ion and enhanced lithium/magnesium ion selectivity.

Despite significant advancements in fundamental understanding and technical applications, much remains to be explored to fully harness solar energy for addressing water, energy, and resource challenges. We asked experts in the field to share their insights on opportunities and challenges in pushing solar technology to better serve society's increasing demands for water and achieve sustainability in water-related domains.

Statistical analyses show that terrestrial groundwater levels affect redox potential in salt marshes, highlighting the importance of upland–marsh hydraulic connectivity in influencing marsh biogeochemistry and ecological function.

Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) empowered by single-atom catalysts (SACs) promise efficient water purification, but face the challenges of low catalyst yields, limited activity, and high costs of SACs. A novel salt-templating strategy enables mass production of SACs with precise multi-dimensional coordination and high metal loadings, potentially revolutionizing AOP technologies for water treatment.

Surface-functionalized microporous electrodes are developed for boron-selective bipolar membrane-assisted electrosorption. This approach significantly improves boron removal efficiency and selectivity.

Since the launch ofNature Water, we have encouraged our authors to deposit their data on public repositories. We are aware that this is sometimes challenging but we believe that it can be rewarding. We have asked some of the authors of papers that we published close to our launch to share with our readers their motivation for sharing their data and the experience of the process.

This Review examines methods for mapping river barriers, emphasizing the potential consequences of a lack of data on smaller barriers. It highlights the need for improved mapping approaches to support effective water management

The new SWOT satellite mission tracks global water supply–demand and land-to-ocean water movement, leading the way towards an integrated satellite observatory that can help humanity adapt to Earth’s shifting water and energy systems.

This Review summarizes the recent progress in solar-driven steam generation in diverse functionalizations and highlights its applications beyond water purification and desalination.