Global Rundown
New York City adopts new rules for building owners to reduce risk of Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks.
More native freshwater fish species in Europe are at risk of extinction, a conservation group finds in an updated assessment.
Drought could play a role in antibiotic resistance in soil microbes, a new study finds.
Long-term drought in southern Texas has prompted a rush on groundwater.
The Lead
Drought harms human health in a number of ways. Researchers at Cal Tech may have found another.
Their study, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, links drought to antibiotic resistance in soil microbes.
Soil microbes are a source of antibiotics. As drought dries out the soils, natural antibiotics become more concentrated. Bigger natural defenses will give rise to bacteria most suited to fighting them.
“Anywhere you increase exposure to antibiotics, you will select for microbes that can withstand them,” Dianne Newman, a Cal Tech microbiologist, told NPR.
The bigger question is whether antibiotic resistance in soil microbes can be transferred to pathogens that infect people, perhaps through cuts or scratches. There the research is less conclusive.
The researchers looked at antibiotic resistance data from hospitals in 116 countries. They found a correlation between higher aridity and more resistance.
Still, it is only a correlation that will require additional research to test.
In context: Climate Change Magnifies Health Risks at Every Stage of Life
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This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
An updated assessment of Europe’s aquatic biodiversity finds that 42 percent of native freshwater fish species are “threatened with extinction.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) previously assessed Europe’s fish biodiversity in 2011. Since then, the situation has worsened. The share of threatened species rose by 5 percent, now totaling 222 species.
The threats to fish survival are numerous. Dams and weirs block movement within a watershed. For this reason, migratory fish are most at risk. Pollution is degrading habitats. Climate change is heating up rivers. Invasive species prey on locals.
The report calls out karst areas – limestone regions with water flowing underground – and freshwater springs as particularly vulnerable ecosystems.
On the Radar
Building owners in New York City will face stricter cooling tower testing requirements when new rules go into effect on May 8, Healthbeat reports. The change is meant to reduce the likelihood of deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks.
The respiratory illness, which resembles pneumonia, is caused by Legionella bacteria that can proliferate in rooftop cooling towers. Those towers can then spread the bacteria in airborne water droplets.
Building owners will have to test the water in their cooling towers every month under the new rules. The old requirement was every 90 days.
The move follows an outbreak in Harlem last summer in which 90 people were sickened and seven people died. Health investigators identified cooling towers at Harlem Hospital and a neighboring construction site as the source of the bacteria.
In context: America’s Deadliest Waterborne Disease Is Not Letting Up
Long-term drought in South Texas has “triggered a rush on local aquifers,” Inside Climate News reports.
Corpus Christi, an energy hub and the region’s largest city, is pumping millions of gallons of groundwater daily to compensate for nearly depleted reservoirs and stave off a water emergency.
The wellfields are dozens of miles outside the city. This desperate water-supply expansion has caused groundwater levels to drop and some rural household wells to go dry.
In context: Western U.S. Cities Open Wallets in Quest for Water
