News

UN Member States met in Ottawa 23-29 April to continue the negotiations for a global treaty to end plastic pollution. Researchers from NIVA are part of a network of 350 scientists informing the negotiations.

In combination, solar power, hydropower and batteries can provide large amounts of renewable, stable and affordable energy. The HYDROSUN project is developing hybrid power plants based on these three solutions.

Nature positivity is a popular buzz word for those engaged in the offshore wind industry. But a recent study concludes that a scientific definition of what it really means, is missing.

Early 2024, the European Parliament will have a final vote on the Nature Restoration Law (NRL). An international team of scientists has investigated the prospects of the new regulation and published an article about it in the journal Science.

A comprehensive Norwegian study has investigated the environmental effects of pharmaceutical discharges via wastewater from hospitals. Some drugs may pose a hazard to the environment, while for several drugs we lack knowledge about the effects on aquatic life.

Earlier this month, NIVA and the NIVA-led Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty were present in Nairobi for the third round of negotiations for a binding global agreement against plastic pollution. The goal was to contribute to an agreement that regulates the entire plastics lifecycle and that is based on solid, independent research.

A recent Nature article with two NIVA co-authors shows that biodiversity in European streams and rivers has increased since the 1970s, but that the positive trend has stopped in the last decade.

The ever-increasing problem of plastic pollution has prompted widespread efforts to combat it through innovative clean-up technologies. These advancements, however, often seen as the silver bullet to solve our plastic crisis, sometimes do more harm than good.

Microalgae are a renewable resource. They absorb CO2 as they grow and reproduce themselves at a rapid pace. It is time to put them to use. 

Over the next four years, the new European Topic Centre for Biodiversity and Ecosystems (ETC BE) will compile, systematise, and assess the knowledge base for European environmental policies.

The Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) has recently been awarded funding to lead a new EU project that will investigate the interaction between all European regulations that affect governance of Europe’s seas and coasts.

Some may have never heard of the term Cryosphere, though most know where the Earth is covered by ice and snow either seasonally or year-round. Climate change is happening in the Cryosphere faster and more dramatically than anywhere else on earth. The first State of the Cryosphere report, reviewed and supported by nearly 50 leading cryosphere scientists and with over half of them Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) authors, has been released and will come out annually every year until 2030.

At the Aurora hydrothermal vent field, 82.5N, the HACON project successfully sampled rocks, fluids, sediments and fauna to better understand the functioning of the deep Arctic Ocean.

Ten innovative EU projects to build ocean observation systems that provide input for evidence-based management of the ocean and the Blue Economy, have joined forces in the strong cluster ‘Nourishing Blue Economy and Sharing Ocean Knowledge’. Under the lead of the EuroSea project, the group published a joint policy brief listing recommendations for sustainable ocean observation and management.

Persistent, mobile (PM) substances are being recognized as serious threats to the safety of water resources. In many cases, drinking water supplies have to be purified using expensive technologies because of contamination by PM substances. As part of this effort, a new, wide-reaching European Research project with NIVA as one of the partners, Zero Pollution of Persistent, Mobile substances, (ZeroPM) will start in autumn 2021.

We have grown out of our premises in Oslo Science Park and will during August 2021 move to Økernveien 94. The formal change of address will take place on 16. August.

In a time of environmental awareness, spurred on by the possibility that our world is threatened by climate change, it is important to remember that there are other anthropogenic pressures, which are also essential for addressing the protection of the marine and coastal environment. Pollution is a global, complex issue that contributes to biodiversity loss and poor environmental health and comes from the production and release of many of the synthetic chemicals that we use in our daily lives. Chemical contaminants are often underrepresented as a major contributor of environmental deterioration.

Something has happened in the ocean – completely out of view – that destroyed Norway’s kelp forests across an estimated 8400 km2.

In mid-April, the three Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) on Water, Oceans and Antimicrobial Resistance announced the results from the AquaticPollutants Joint Transnational Call. NIVA are happy to be partner in two of the projects funded.

NIVA's ecotox laboratory is the first lab in Norway to be accepted as a formal member of the EU-NETVAL (European Union Network of Laboratories for the Validation of Alternative Methods).