Deep Dive
Neglected Drinking Water Networks in ‘Model’ Europe
As severe drought grips the whole of Europe, many countries are using water tankers to make up for lost drinking water supplies. This also shows that Europe was caught unprepared by the weather – and that its drinking water systems have been neglected for decades.
When the Cooling Water and the Power Run Out
Low water on the Danube nearly shut down Hungary's Paks nuclear plant, and the Iberian blackout showed how fragile Europe's grid is.
Europe Is Drying Up
Record-low river levels and a structural water shortage building up for years are hitting the continent from Hungary to Spain.
PFAS Ban Takes Effect in Packaging
From 12 August 2026, PFAS-coated pizza boxes, paper cups and greaseproof papers will disappear from the shelves because of tightening concentration limits – transforming the daily business of the food and packaging industries and, indirectly, the water sector.
What Festivals Leave Behind in the Water
International research shows what traces large waterside events leave in lakes and rivers.
Water Quality at Europe's Bathing Sites – River Conditions Raise Questions
According to the European Environment Agency's 2025 report, the vast majority of the continent's bathing sites are safe, but river swimming remains the weakest link despite urban successes in Berlin and Budapest.
Why Is the Hydrogen Powertrain Being Pushed to the Margins?
Behind the most loudly promised technology of the energy transition lie persistent cost gaps, missing infrastructure and documented oil industry interests.
Wastewater as a Data Carrier
Wastewater-based epidemiology has long gone beyond predicting epidemics – the sewer network is a real-time mirror of a whole community's health, social and environmental condition.
What Is Hydrogen Good For? – Industry, Energy, Transport
For decades, hydrogen has quietly kept heavy industry alive – now, through e-fuels and fuel cells, it is entering transport too.
The Paving-Everything Mania vs. the Sponge City
In these drought years, water retention has become a hot topic, but the discussion usually focuses only on the consequences of river regulation. Yet we also build our cities so that as little rain as possible can soak into the ground – which has local consequences too, such as heat stress.