This study examined the availability of free drinking water during lunchtime in US public schools, as required by federal legislation beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. Data were collected by mail-back surveys in nationally representative samples of US public elementary, middle, and high schools from 2009-2010 to 2011-2012. Overall, 86.4%, 87.4%, and 89.4% of students attended elementary, ...

It has been suggested that, unless a major effort is made, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide may rise above four times the pre-industrial level in a few centuries. Here we use a coupled atmosphere-ocean-land model to explore the response of the global water cycle to such a large increase in carbon dioxide, focusing on river discharge and soil moisture. Our results suggest that wat...

The tendency of trees to grow taller with increasing water availability is common knowledge. Yet a robust, universal relationship between the spatial distribution of water availability and forest canopy height (H) is lacking. Here, we created a global water availability map by calculating an annual budget as the difference between precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) at a 1-...

Field and greenhouse experiments were conducted to determine the extent to which fenamiphos and its degradation products, fenamiphos sulfoxide and fenamiphos sulfone, are available to contact nematodes in the soil. Water extraction provided a relative measure of each chemical's availability to the soil water where the chemicals could contact nematodes, and methanol extraction provided a relativ...

Substantial changes in the hydrological cycle are projected for the 21st century, but these projections are subject to major uncertainties. In this context, the "dry gets drier, wet gets wetter" (DDWW) paradigm is often used as a simplifying summary. However, recent studies cast doubt on the validity of the paradigm and also on applying the widely used P - E (precipitation - evapotranspiration)...

Efforts by several investigators to measure availability of water to plants by vapor pressure (2, 12) and other methods (10, 14) have indicated that the potential of water at the permanent wilting percentage is approximately 16 x 106 ergs per gram, whereas others (1, 11) have obtained results which indicate somewhat lower values. A great many experiments (3, 4, 5, 6, 13) have demonstrated that ...

To the Editor—Pathogens can contaminate the environment and cause infections. In hospitals, contamination of the environment is frequent and expected. Toilets in hospitals are an area of concern. The high contamination rates of toilet tap handles or levers for manual flushing are reported in many publications. Toilet seats and handles are commonly found to be contaminated. A good “toilet design...

1. Globally, both climatic patterns and nitrogen deposition rates show directional changes over time. It is uncertain how woody seedlings, which coexist with herbaceous plants in savannas, respond to concurrent changes in water and nutrient availability. 2. We investigated competition effects between herbaceous vegetation and tree seedlings ( Colophospermum mopane ) under changed water and nutr...

A seasonal period of water deficit characterizes tropical dry forests (TDFs). There, sympatric tree species exhibit a diversity of growth rates, functional traits, and responses to drought, suggesting that each species may possess different strategies to grow under different conditions of water availability. The evaluation of the long-term growth responses to changes in the soil water balance s...

Recent warm, dry summers showed the vulnerability of the European power sector to low water availability and high river temperatures. Climate change is likely to impact electricity supply, in terms of both water availability for hydropower generation and cooling water usage for thermoelectric power production. Here, we show the impacts of climate change and changes in water availability and wat...