Matthew Sullivan, an environmental specialist in the Field Operations section of the Bureau of Environmental Services for the city of Portland, Oregon, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, Ph.D., about how field testing, particularly for water analysis, has changed over the years. The testing equipment is now better suited for field analysis, in terms of its size, compactness, and robustness. The newer instruments have also allowed for sampling and testing to be done remotely and in an automated fashion. Overall, field instrumentation is striving to provide faster, cheaper, more robust, and more real-time measurements for routine analysis.

Nearly 80 percent of disease in developing countries is linked to bad water and sanitation. Now a scientist at Michigan Technological University has developed a simple, cheap way to make water safe to drink, even if it’s muddy.

A new method to make better use of vast amounts of data related to global geography, population and climate may help determine the relative importance of population increases vs. climate change.

Most laboratory water purification systems contain a resistivity or conductivity meter and cell to monitor the purity level of the water. Resistivity is the reciprocal of conductivity and either may be used to inexpensively monitor the ionic purity of water.