Showers and thunderstorms swept across Lee and Collier counties, with four or more inches of rain. Other areas didn’t get enough rain to do much more than dampen the landscape. Southwest Florida’s drought is not yet over.

New disaster-resilient water treatment plant to serve Key West and the Lower Keys.

Stringent water restrictions now in effect in Northeastern Cape Coral after aquifer drops. Moves made to protect the Mid-Hawthorn Aquifer and the drinking water supply in this area of Cape Coral.

North Port is in the midst of two-week process to clear out the piping of the city's water system, which can be done while the water can still be used

At the 32nd Annual Southwest Florida Model United Nations conference at Florida Gulf Coast University in March, high school teams were challenged to imagine solutions for the problem of land-based plastics and the micro and nano plastics that we now know are in the world all around us. Cypress Lake High School’s Model UN team took top honors and a $1,000 prize for their presentation proposing a creative and actionable — and ambitious — plan to address plastic pollution along Southwest Florida’s Gulf Coast. We learn about their plan from one of the team's members.

Today is Earth Day, and the Caloosahatchee River is 100 pounds lighter, so to speak, than it was before Megan Parsons and her friends got together last weekend for one of the region's first Earth Day celebrations and cleanups

Connie Ramos-Williams decided to step down from her executive director position to spend more time with her growing family and return to what she was doing before she felt the need to help Calusa Waterkeeper – being retired.

On April 10 WGCU hosted an event at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Water School that featured NOVA Executive Producer Chris Schmidt. That day we screened parts of the NOVA episode Weathering the Future for an audience of about 200 people. Between the segments we chatted with him, as well as two FGCU professors about issues raised in the film and the challenges we face in Southwest Florida when it comes to adapting to our changing climate. Chris talked about the challenges NOVA faces in communicating science to a broad audience, and Dr. Win Everham and Dr. Molly Nation helped tie it all together.

Dr. Jerry Jackson is known to WGCU listeners as the creator and host of With the Wild Things, heard weekday mornings at 7:19 and weekday afternoons at 5:18. He’s a professor emeritus of Ecological Sciences at Florida Gulf Coast University, and a professor emeritus at Mississippi State University. Nick Penniman is a retired newspaper publisher, and he is chair emeritus of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and a Florida Master Naturalist. He and Dr. Jackson gave a talk together at Florida Gulf Coast University last week as part of the school’s Provost’s Seminar Series titled Getting to Know the World Around You: an Illustrated Conversation” so we had them come by the studio to chat.

Pointing to ongoing threats to manatees, a U.S. district judge Friday said the state has violated the federal Endangered Species Act in its regulation of wastewater discharges into the Indian River Lagoon.Orlando-based Judge Carlos Mendoza issued a 21-page decision that sided with the environmental group Bear Warriors United, which argued discharges into the waterway along the East Coast led to the demise of seagrass and, as a result, deaths and other harm to manatees.