News Archive

With the "Studiengangsinitiative²", the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS) is revising its two Bachelor's degree programmes in Agricultural Sciences and Environmental Sciences by 2028. What does it take to optimally prepare students for their professional future? Last Friday, around 95 members of D-USYS and ETH Zurich met for the kick-off.

Interception and evaporation limit the amount of summer precipitation reaching forest soils. As a result, beech and spruce trees are dominantly transpiring precipitation originating from the winter half of the year. Sufficient soil water storage is key during extended summer dry periods.

Fukushima Daiichi, 11 March 2011 - 2024. What are the consequences of the nuclear accident on the Pacific Ocean to today? Núria Casacuberta Arola has been investigating this question for around 13 years. Just a few days ago, she returned from an expedition at the shore off Fukushima and at beaches from Fukushima Prefecture with a team of international researchers. At an event hosted by the Swiss Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan (SCCIJ), she presented the key findings from her research.

Environmental changes can flip microbial predator-prey hierarchy, find researchers around Marie Vasse from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Gregory Velicer from ETH Zurich. In their study, two species of bacteria grown in a lab reversed their predator-​prey relationship after one species was grown at a lower temperature.

Every year, ETH Zurich awards the ESOP scholarship to excellent students from different backgrounds. This year, two students, Abheepsa Nanda and Nina Bili Rossi, decided to use their scholarships to pursue a Master’s degree programme at the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS). This week, we are presenting Abheepsa, who came to ETH to study ecology and evolution.

Sonia Seneviratne will represent Switzerland in the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC Bureau is responsible for advising the panel on science and work strategy and governs the preparation of the IPCC reports. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is made up of 195 governments and its reports are considered the gold standard of decision-making for climate policy.

Virginia Molin, an environmental science student at D-USYS, wins the Esri Young Scholar Award 2023.  

Emergency operations at ETH Zurich: In only a few days' time, our lecturers switched from classroom teaching to online classes, something that would normally have taken years of project planning to do. They recorded their lectures and put exercises online, sometimes literally overnight. But what happened to the excursions and all those courses that require working in small groups? Taking a closer look.

Johan Lilliestam, Senior Assistant and Lecturer at the Institute for Environmental Decisions, is is one out of six scientists from ETH Zurich who have triumphed at the prestigious competition for Starting Grants from the European Research Council (ERC).

Michael Stauffacher has been appointed as new delegate of the Network to the Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHS).