In South Asia, a region facing rapid economic growth, immense population pressure, and high climate vulnerability, the circular economy (CE) has become a critical imperative for sustainable development. This study provides a comparative overview of the CE landscape across eight South Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The analysis reveals the CE transition is nascent region-wide, though India has advanced its policy landscape through a comprehensive suite of rules and missions and Pakistan is developing a national policy. The primary focus remains on waste management, evidenced by programs like Bhutan’s ‘Zero Waste by 2030’ vision, the Maldives’ Single-Use Plastic Phase-Out Plan, and Sri Lanka’s Clean Sri Lanka Programme. While Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is emerging for plastics and e-waste in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, a significant “policy-practice gap” persists, undermined by weak enforcement and governance fragmented across priority sectors like plastics, food systems, and textiles. Most major CE initiatives are catalyzed by international development partners, with regional programs playing a key role in funding innovation. Finally, while the informal sector is the backbone of material recovery, ensuring a just transition that improves working conditions and secures livelihoods remains a critical challenge. The absence of a cohesive regional framework limits collaboration. Scaling the circular economy in South Asia requires integrated national strategies, prioritizing a just transition for the informal sector, and establishing a regional platform for policy harmonization to create self-sustaining system through multi-sectoral involvement, including the business sector.

Booking for the EIG 2026 Conference in Liverpool is now open: https://www.eigconferences.com/ There will be the usual plenary opening session, including an introduction to the geology of North West England by Professor Peter Burgess, University of Liverpool, and the Ansel Dunham Memorial Lecture by Fiona McEvoy of NWS. This will be followed by parallel sessions, from a variety of geotechnical and quarry design case studies and overviews of professional practice to prospecting, geomorphological quarry restoration, low carbon resources and the water environment. Conference programme can be downloaded here: https://www.eigconferences.com/s/EIG-2026-Liverpool-Programme-May6th.pdf Delegate booking, trade stands and sponsorship opportunities are here: https://www.eigconferences.com/2026-conference NB Delegate Early Bird deadline 30th June 2026.

We run in-person continuing professional development (CPD) sessions for primary teachers from our London and Keyworth offices. If you’re a teacher following the National Curriculum in England or Wales and want to get to grips with rocks, fossils, mountains, volcanoes and other geology teaching in the primary curriculum, join us for a session of lessons and demos you can take straight into the classroom. There are Primary Science Teacher CPD sessions on Rocks, fossils and soils on Thursday 18th June and Wednesday 1st July 2026 The following sessions are available, please click on the links to reserve your place: Thursday 18 June – Natural History Museum, London Rocks, fossils and soils Wednesday 1 July – BGS Keyworth Rocks, fossils and soils Thursday 2nd July – BGS Keyworth Plate tectonics, volcanoes and earthquakes Relative topics public engagement

09.06.2026 – Climate change, land use and water use are significantly altering the global freshwater cycle at an increasing pace. This produces more widespread and frequent dry and wet periods, pushing freshwater systems further beyond its planetary boundary, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. Led by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland, with contributions from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the study provides an updated assessment of the planetary boundary for freshwater change and identifies the key drivers of its accelerating transgression at both global and regional scales. An empty waterhole in the Okavango Delta. Many freshwater ecosystems rely on natural wet-dry cycles, yet increasing hydrological anomalies can threaten their functioning. Globally, such anomalies are now about twice as common as in the early 20th century. Photo: Adobe Stock / Bernd Rolauffs The findings show that climate change, together with large-scale land and water use, is pushing the freshwater cycle further away from a stable state, as defined by the planetary boundary for freshwater change. This boundary is already considered to be transgressed, reflecting a long-term trend that jeopardises the freshwater cycle’s ability to support vital climatic and ecological Earth system processes. Using data from 1901 to 2019, and an ensemble of global hydrological models, the researchers analysed quantitative changes in both “blue water” (in rivers, lakes and groundwater) and “green water” (in soils) around the world, distinguishing between the effects of human activities, through land and water use, and the effects through human-induced climate change on dry and wet anomalies. “Changes in the freshwater cycle have been speeding up in recent decades, and projections indicate that this trend is likely to intensify further,” said lead author Vili Virkki from the University of Eastern Finland. “When the freshwater cycle changes faster than the environment can adapt, the risks of adverse impacts increase.” According to the study, dry and wet anomalies now occur about twice as often as they did in the early 20th century, for both blue and green water. Regional patterns vary: While increasing dryness dominates in many tropical and subtropical regions, anomalously wet conditions have become more frequent in the northern boreal zone, reflected in floods and more prolonged, large-scale precipitation events. In terms of attribution, climate change is the main global driver of these changes – and of the transgression of the planetary boundary for freshwater change. Wet anomalies are mainly driven by climatic factors, while direct human pressures such as land and water use intensify dry deviations in particular. “The results clearly show that focusing only on blue water does not provide a sufficiently holistic picture of water cycle change and its potential impacts,” said co-author Sofie te Wierik from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. “Changes vary substantially between regions, over time, and depending on which component of the freshwater cycle is being examined.” In some regions, such as parts of India and Central Asia, climate change may slightly increase seasonal water availability, but these effects are outweighed by water and land use, which contribute to drier conditions. “Our study makes clear that returning to safe limits for the global freshwater cycle will depend on addressing climate change and land and water use as interconnected drivers of change. The findings also underscore the need to better understand how planetary boundaries interact – a task we intend to take forward,” said co-author Dieter Gerten from PIK.

Self-cleaning desalination system Researchers at the University of Rochester have developed a solar-powered desalination device featuring laser-etched superwicking black metal (right). Unlike existing solar-thermal desalination systems (left), the new technology prevents salt and mineral buildup on the panel’s active region. (Courtesy: University of Rochester photo/J. Adam Fenster) Constant access to a supply of freshwater is critical for life on this planet, as well as for the growth of industry, agriculture and modern-day economies. But natural water supplies are depleting in many parts of the world, with around 2.2 billion people lacking safely managed drinking water, according to United Nations estimates. Many countries rely on converting ocean water into freshwater using desalination plants. But the reverse osmosis and thermal distillation techniques currently used are energy intensive and leave behind brine that raises the salt level of the water (and reduces oxygen levels), which can harm sea life. Researchers from the University of Rochester have taken a new approach by developing a solar-thermal desalination process that’s less energy intensive, doesn’t generate brine and doesn’t require chemical additives to pre-treat the water. “Today, about one quarter of the global population lacks safely managed drinking water; but at the same time the oceans contain an enormous resource of both water and valuable minerals,” explains lead researcher Chunlei Guo. “We wanted to develop a technology that could address these challenges together, producing freshwater sustainably while turning what is traditionally considered waste into a resource.” The novel desalination technology, described in Light: Science & Applications, is based on a multi-functional superwicking black metal (SWBM) panel created via femtosecond laser processing. Desalination involves evaporating and distilling the water, removing the salt in the process. To do this, materials that absorb sunlight and heat up, while wicking water, are required. The SWBM panel proved effective at both. The SWBM panel is highly attractive to water and can pull a thin film of water upwards across its surface, while absorbing almost all solar energy. This uphill pulling of water against gravity means that the panel can be placed in any orientation, enabling effective solar tracking. The evaporated and distilled water can be extracted from the panel and the remaining salts are directed away from the panel’s active region and deposited in its passive (untreated) regions. This not only self-cleans the active region of the panel, but enables continuous desalination to produce distilled drinking water. Harvesting valuable minerals This approach means that concentrated brines are not deposited back into the ocean, and the solid salt can be collected and used to produce common table salt. The process also extracts other precious minerals such as lithium, which could be used in battery manufacturing. As traditional land-based mining becomes more expensive, extracting lithium directly from ocean water could prove a lower-cost, more sustainable option. “The most important advance is that our system can desalinate real ocean water continuously using sunlight alone, without generating waste, with little to no maintenance and while recovering valuable minerals such as lithium,” says Guo. “By using a superwicking, self‑cleaning surface invented in my lab to move salts away from the evaporation region, we overcame the clogging bottleneck that has limited solar desalination until now. This is the first time we have achieved stable, low‑maintenance, high‑efficiency and nearly 100% salt-recovery performance with actual seawater.” Solar-tracking desalination system Sunlight is incident on the SWBM panel through a transparent hemispherical dome, generating water vapour that condenses on the dome’s interior hydrophobic surface and is collected by the walls. (Courtesy: CC BY 4.0/Light Sci Appl 10.1038/s41377-026-02315-4) The self-cleaning mechanism is vital for use in real-world scenarios. Many desalination technologies work in the lab where the only mineral component is sodium chloride. Ocean water, however, contains many other materials, such as magnesium and calcium salts, that could crystallize on the panel and clog it. The self-cleaning process is driven by etched grooves that stop these minerals from staying on the panel. If oceans contain too high a mineral content, wider and deeper grooves can be etched into the panel by applying a higher laser power during fabrication. The team tested the solar-thermal desalination panel using water samples from Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. When tracking the sun over a week to purify the ocean water, the panel demonstrated an average evaporation rate of 1.76±0.04 kg/m2/h and a salt harvesting rate of 61.74 ± 2.46  kg/m2/h under one sun illumination, corresponding to 74% solar-to-vapour conversion efficiency and near-100% salt extraction. Waffle-shaped solar evaporator delivers durable desalination Read more The researchers are now working to scale up the technology and integrate it with other mature platforms, such as solar cells. “We have made significant progress by demonstrating that the desalination process can be used to cool the solar cells, improving electrical output while simultaneously producing freshwater. This approach could lead to a synergistic water-energy system that operates sustainably,” Guo tells Physics World. Want to read more? Registration is free, quick and easy Note: The verification e-mail to complete your account registration should arrive immediately. However, in some cases it takes longer. Don't forget to check your spam folder. If you haven't received the e-mail in 24 hours, please contact customerservices@ioppublishing.org. E-mail Address Register

Surveillance cameras spot vehicles – five now prosecuted over village dumps