2+ hour, 31+ min ago  (861+ words) World Atlas Wetlands cover only about 6% of the Earth's land surface, but they do an outsized share of the work that keeps the planet livable. They filter the water that human and animal populations drink, absorb the floods that would…...

1+ day, 2+ hour ago  (818+ words) World Atlas Biodiversity is the full range of living things in a given place. That covers every plant, animal, fungus, and microbe, plus the genetic variation that exists within each species. An area packed with many species is biologically diverse....

1+ day, 22+ hour ago  (1173+ words) World Atlas In August 2014, a toxic algal bloom near Toledo's Lake Erie water intake forced the city to issue a "do not drink" advisory to roughly half a million customers for two and a half days. That event made national…...

3+ day, 6+ hour ago  (62+ words) Nile River flowing past the sand dunes of Aswan, Egypt. This system created the necessary conditions for massive national projects. Egypt's abundant resources were effectively put to use via its sophisticated administrative state, backed by the pharaoh's ultimate authority. Statue…...

1+ week, 1+ min ago  (453+ words) World Atlas More than 70 percent of all terrestrial mammal and bird species have had their habitats overlap with an armed conflict zone at some point between 1989 and 2018. Within that group, 615 species face both widespread exposure (more than half of their…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago  (956+ words) World Atlas The Great Lakes are sometimes described as the most heavily invaded freshwater system in the world, with about 188 documented non-native aquatic species established in the basin and roughly a third of those classified as invasive by environmental scientists....

1+ week, 22+ hour ago  (994+ words) World Atlas The Environmental Integrity Project's 2022 review of state water-quality reports found that more than half of US lake acres are classified as impaired, meaning they fall short of the standards needed for swimming, fishing, drinking water, or aquatic life....

1+ week, 2+ day ago  (482+ words) The Sonoran Desert is widely regarded as having the greatest species diversity of any desert in North America, and one of the richest arid ecosystems globally. Covering southern Arizona and southeastern California, it owes its diversity to a rare climatic…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago  (574+ words) Marine mammals such as bottlenose dolphins are common in the Gulf, along with nesting and migratory birds. More than 280 bird species are documented at the seashore, including brown pelicans with their long bills and ospreys, the fish-hunting raptor often seen…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago  (455+ words) Isle Royale is home to Isle Royale National Park, which is open from mid-April through late October and is the only American national park to close entirely during winter due to extreme weather conditions. The inland lakes can only be…...