Horizon International co-created the Exchange alongside USAID and organizations from across government, business, academia, and NGOs who believe that together we can tackle humanity’s greatest challenges. The Exchange is providing over 300 summaries of resources from Horizon’s Solutions Site with links to the full articles and case studies and anticipates to soon have over 600 posts from the Solutions Site’s 1,500 plus resources. Explore resources on the Exchange from Horizon International at http://www.globalinnovationexchange.org/resources/organization/3013.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed small, portable solar cell water purification plants. With the help of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus the purification plant stations, called Micro Production Centres (MPC), have now been placed across rural Bangladesh.
[img_assist|nid=1541|title=Drinking water|desc=Courtesy of CDC|link=none|align=left|width=180|height=120]In recognition of urgent, immediate need to address devastating health problems caused by lead in drinking water in Flint, Michigan, and in other places across the United States the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released DWMAPS – the Drinking Water Mapping Application to Protect Source Waters on the 19th of February 2016.
Efforts on every scale from international to local, cooperatively and individually, are increasingly responding to this stark reality by setting aside land and regions of the seas as preservation areas which are now being protected to various extents. President Obama has taken again this past week action to invest and conserve America's natural treasures. President Barack Obama commented on the 12th of February 2016 upon designation of millions of acres in three new national monuments in the California desert to bring the land and sea he has protected to 265 million acres.
Horizon International announces Partnership with the Global Innovation Exchange, “a global online marketplace for innovations, funding, insights, resources and conversations, allowing the world to better work together to address humanity’s greatest challenges.” The Exchange is providing summaries of resources from Horizon’s Solutions Site with links to the full articles and case studies. The founding partners include the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID and the world’s leading donors, foundations, universities, research organizations, non-governmental organizations, and news media. View a comprehensive and growing list of partners.
According a National Science Foundation (NSF), scientific literature and fisheries management and conservation efforts have for years assumed that the survival of adult fish is relatively constant through time. They further held that most fluctuations in the numbers of adults come from variation in the number of young fish that are produced and survive to maturity. Those assumptions have been challenged by new research by the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network.
On October 28, 2015, Tommy E. Remengesua, Jr., President of the Republic of Palau signed into law the “Palau National Marine Sanctuary Act,” creating “the sixth largest marine protected area in the world, while setting aside a zone for domestic fishing.” According to Nature Conservancy Palau supports more than 400 species of coral species and nearly 1,300 varieties of reef fish.
Scientists are studying coral reefs in areas where low pH is naturally occurring to answer questions about ocean acidification, which threatens coral reef ecosystems worldwide. A new study led by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that coral reefs in Palau seem to be defying the odds, showing none of the predicted responses to low pH except for an increase in bio-erosion--the physical breakdown of coral skeletons by boring organisms such as mollusks and worms.
Rajendra Singh of India is named the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate, for his innovative water restoration efforts, improving water security in rural India, and for showing extraordinary courage and determination in his quest to improve the living conditions for those most in need.
U.K. government establishes world’s largest fully protected marine reserve and sets a new standard for monitoring. The 834,334-square-kilometre reserve (322,138 square miles) is home to at least 1,249 species of marine mammals, seabirds and fish, the new reserve protects some of the most near-pristine ocean habitat on Earth.