Articles in 2021

With rising fossil fuel consumption and ongoing land cover change, humanity is burning through its remaining carbon budget. Recent work puts a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on biospheric carbon we can’t afford to lose.

Soil fungi can form beneficial associations with plant roots. This study finds that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can increase crop uptake of nitrogen derived from common trees in African smallholder maize fields, sustainably enhancing these agroecosystems.

Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires that we avoid losing key natural carbon reserves. This study maps such irrecoverable carbon globally and finds a third of the remaining managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities and nearly a quarter in protected areas.

Historical dynamics show that no country has achieved minimum social thresholds within biophysical boundaries between 1992 and 2015, and a projection indicates that no country is on the path to achieve them.

In the coming months, Nature Sustainability will be publishing a series of World Views from diverse scholars to stimulate further thinking and dialogue within the community.

Degraded land is being restored along an 8,000 km stretch across Sahelian countries. A new analysis reveals promising economic returns from recent projects and informs the targeting of strategies for newly pledged funds.

Rapid progress toward intergenerational well-being requires systems approaches, inclusion, collaboration and a focus on scale, argues Pamela Matson.

A cost–benefit analysis of land restoration in the African Great Green Wall shows that, under a range of assumptions, the investment makes economic sense at a regional level, despite the differences across countries and biomes.

Perovskite solar cells are an emerging energy technology but their sustainability is jeopardized by the presence of Pb. Here the authors introduce on-device layers that could capture over 99.9% of leaked Pb.

Well-being and resilience are considered related or even synergistic dimensions of sustainable development. This Perspective highlights how trade-offs emerging from narrow interpretations of resilience and well-being could threaten sustainable development outcomes.

China’s coasts have become more populous and urbanized. This study finds a rebound in the area of coastal wetlands, reflecting recent conservation and restoration, with large losses between 1984 and 2011 followed by increases in saltmarsh area and stabilization of tidal flats.

Ecosystems that provide fresh water for cities also impact sediment flows, flood mitigation and hydropower provision. This Article looks at over 300 cities globally to gauge the interactions of natural ecosystems with built infrastructure.

The world’s coasts are increasingly covered with built structures, such as piers and seawalls. This study finds that coastal infrastructure has replaced more than half of the coastline associated with 30 urban centres and forecasts future hotspots using New Zealand as a case study.

Water research has fallen into a ‘techno optimism’ that tries to solve all problems despite not asking fundamental questions, according to Stephanie Pincetl of the University of California, Los Angeles. She talks to Nature Sustainability about the challenges facing the field and science writ large.

China’s food demand is projected to grow and reshape its production and trade relations. A new study evaluates the consequent challenges for agricultural land, greenhouse gas emissions, fertilizer and irrigation water use in China and its trading partners.

Meeting China’s growing demand for food, especially for livestock products, will have huge environmental impacts domestically and globally. This study finds large increases in land, water, fertilizer and greenhouse gas emissions that vary based on openness of trade.

Our understanding of the impacts of oil spills highlights the urgency of preventing them. A new study considers public health and other effects of an oil spill from an abandoned Red Sea tanker.

Dr Shailja Vaidya Gupta is Senior Adviser at the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India. She tells Nature Sustainability about the challenges of climate negotiations from her country’s perspective, views are her own.

As the climate crisis continues its deadly course, how much longer will it take for world leaders to act?

The possibility of a huge oil spill off the coast of Yemen, already in crisis, is increasingly likely. This study projects the likely spill extent and impacts to public health, food, water and air.