As commercial synthetic biology production gathers speed, there are growing calls for greater regulation, reports Yojana Sharma.

The key to tackling hunger in Africa is enriching its soil, according to a story in Nature. The big debate is how to do it.

SciDev.Net talks to Sylvia Earle, scientist, oceanographer, explorer, about her hopes for oceans at the Rio+20 conference in Brazil in 2012.

Data-sharing is part of the answer to problems arising from the Arab region’s most serious challenge, water, finds Rehab Abd Almohsen.

New technologies offer the promise of delivering environmental information to anyone who wants it, anywhere in the world. But we are not quite there yet.

Controversy over fracking for natural gas has spread to Africa, where it is feared that the extraction process could deplete water supplies.

Climate change will affect the water security of developing countries. Lucinda Mileham explores their priorities as they struggle to cope.

Freshwater supplies are limited, says a report, and to continue with present water-use practices would be "to invite disaster".

Many new technologies have promised to remove arsenic from drinking water but little has changed on the ground, finds T. V. Padma.

Persuading Cambodian river-dwellers to use a newly designed floating toilet instead of the river could cut soaring diarrhoea rates.

Controlling the amount of pollution that goes into China's Taihu Lake is the key to managing the algal blooms, writes Lucie Guo.

The slow response of South Asia to the crisis triggered by arsenic-laced water has cost thousands of lives, reports Yudhijit Bhattacherjee.

Chandra Dissanayake describes how a novel branch of geology could have important consequences for human health around the world.

Rong Jiaojiao reports on efforts to eradicate arsenic poisoning in a Chinese province where the toxin is present in coal used for heating and cooking.

Mark Clayton reports on technologies being developed to solve the problem of arsenic-contaminated drinking water.