Volume 6 Issue 12, December 2023

Freshwaters require targeted policy considerations to achieve biodiversity conservation goals and to support ecosystem services that communities around the globe depend upon. Effective conservation requires creative solutions that build and expand upon conventional protected areas, contextualized for these diverse ecosystems.

Land degradation threatens livelihoods with the potential to displace vulnerable groups, yet its impacts on migration are poorly understood as environmental migration research mainly focuses on the impacts of climate change on migration. We argue that addressing this gap is vital as land degradation poses risks for sustainability.

Veera Mitzner, Director of the Sustainability Research & Innovation (SRI) Congress and Associate Director of Future Earth US Global Hub, and Omar R. López Alfano, Director of the National Research System, SENACYT, Panama, and President of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, talk to Nature Sustainability about the success and prospects of the SRI Congress.

Quantifications of the impacts of sea-level rise in small island states are urgently needed. Focusing on flooding from sea-level rise, a study now estimates the impacts in terms of cost, land loss and population exposure across all small islands worldwide.

Humans and mangroves adapt to conditions arising from subsidence and relative sea-level rise. Quantifying adaptation responses provides an innovative and cost-effective means of characterizing spatial variation in subsidence and relative sea-level rise and delivers critical information for coastal planning.

Siloed exploitation, management and planning of the oceans have resulted in escalating damage to ocean biodiversity and conflicts among users. A study now provides a set of principles to ensure participation and inclusion of all rights-holders and stakeholders towards transformative ocean governance to enable sustainability.

Addressing the global water crisis requires technologies suited to harvest alternative sources of freshwater. Now, a bifunctional fog harvester offers a promising avenue for concurrent water collection and decontamination.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the manufacturing of plastics. However, its adverse effects on human health are driving the development of safer and more sustainable alternatives. Now, a synthetic route enables such an alternative, starting from renewable lignin biomass.

Contemporary plastics upcycling methods rely on the use of hydrogen and solvents, which make the process not environmentally friendly. Now a solvent- and hydrogen-free strategy can convert high-density polyethylene into separable hydrocarbons with high efficiency.

Air quality improvement has benefitted large portions of forests in the USA over the past 20 years. However, although terrestrial ecosystems are now better protected, sensitive species still experience harmful impacts, which could lead to biodiversity loss through shifts in forest composition.

A data-driven framework has been developed to assess the carbon emissions of mobile networks in China, revealing that the launch of 5G networks leads to a decline in carbon efficiency. A deep reinforcement learning algorithm, DeepEnergy, is proposed to increase the carbon efficiency of mobile networks and reduce carbon emissions.

Rangelands provide critical ecosystem and societal services and are central to livestock husbandry across the United States. How these considerations are balanced, and possibly expanded on, will shape the future of rangeland ecosystems and communities moving into the future.

Heatwaves are more frequent and lead to considerable suffering, especially among the poorest and most disadvantaged people. This Perspective discusses the concept of systemic cooling poverty with the aim of informing policy and practice to support vulnerable groups.

Environmental impact assessments are often blamed for delays in resource management, but this analysis finds that EIAs contribute a small fraction of time to implement forest management relative to other parts of the process.

Biodiversity protection indicators are important to assess progress towards sustainable development goals. Using mountain ecosystems as an example, this study compared two biodiversity protection reporting metrics varying in their underlying methods and applied at different spatial scales.

Climate change-induced sea-level rise and coastal extremes pose serious threats to Small Island Developing States (SIDS). This study provides a coastal flood risk assessment for SIDS globally and reveals the need for timely adaptation.

Rural coastal communities depend on natural ecosystems, such as mangrove forests and wetlands, for protection against local sea level rise. Mangroves prove relatively resilient to sea level rise; however, landward shoreline retreat persists, forcing rural communities from coastal settlements.

Levees can obscure the public perception of flood risk, reflected in accelerated rates of development in floodplains relative to surrounding areas. Effective regulation and legislative measures can reverse this effect for more sustainable management.

The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes the need to transform governance for the world to develop sustainably. Using a mixed method approach, this study presents 13 principles for transformative ocean governance that can help turn ocean-use practices into more sustainable ones.

Coral reefs and related fish populations are under threat of extinction unless additional conservation measures are put in place. Focusing on 12 countries with diverse income and tropical reef proximity, this study analyses the willingness of the public to pay for global coral and reef fish conservation.

Reductions in air pollution in the United States over the past two decades have led to positive results for forest growth and survival. However, further measures are needed to protect sensitive tree species and bolster forest biodiversity

Our daily lives and economic activities increasingly rely on 5G mobile networks, but their carbon emissions are concerning. Here the authors quantify the carbon emissions of 5G mobile networks in China and propose a strategy to reduce them, paving the way to sustainable mobile communication infrastructures.

Tools to promote more environmentally friendly behaviours increasingly include nudges but evidence about their effectiveness is mixed. Using an online experiment, this study tests whether reflective strategies increase the effectiveness of nudges in promoting more sustainable diets.

Heavy-duty vehicles are responsible for a substantial portion of road emissions from fossil-fuelled vehicles and cause harmful air pollution. Transitioning to electric heavy-duty vehicles would provide substantial health benefits, especially in Black and Hispanic/Latino urban neighbourhoods.

Clean-up of oil spills is a global challenge because current methods are ineffective when facing highly viscous oil with low fluidity. Here the authors develop a tool for efficient and high-throughput clean-up of highly viscous oil spills.

Atmospheric water harvesting is challenging due to the presence of airborne pollutants. The authors show a device design that enables fog capture with simultaneous pollutant decomposition powered by sunlight.

Solar-driven biomanufacturing using semiconductor biohybrids has the potential to achieve sustainable chemical production, but it is challenging to scale up. Here, the authors present a strategy to achieve scalable solar-driven waste-to-chemical conversion using wastewater-derived biohybrids.

Catalytic upcycling of waste plastics has multiple benefits from a sustainability perspective, but available processes struggle with chlorine-containing feedstocks. Here the authors propose a strategy capable to upcycle chlorine-containing plastic wastes to valuable chemicals.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an essential building block for manufacturing plastics, but its adverse health effects have become a major concern. Here the authors show a zeolite-catalysed synthetitic route to bio-renewable BPA alternatives that feature excellent safety and preserve efficacy of function.

Pairing a cobalt-free cathode with an Earth-abundant SiO_x anode is favourable from a sustainability perspective. Here the electrolyte design allows for such a combination as well as exciting battery performance.