Articles in 2022

Self-governing institutions can allow communities, via cooperation, to avoid overuse of common-pool resources. Experiments performed through an online game platform show that when users share common goals, they self-organize in cooperative behaviour, leading to long-term resource sustainability.

Thermoelectric materials could reduce energy losses by converting waste heat from various processes into electricity. To cater to the needs of wearable devices, the authors design Bi₂Te₃-based thin films that show both excellent thermoelectric performance and long-sought flexibility.

Aviation is a major contributor to climate change. This study assesses the potential of bioenergy crops planted in the US Midwest to meet projected US jet-fuel demand in 2040, finding that planting roughly 23.2 million hectares of marginal land with miscanthus would meet this need.

Sustaining tropical reefs in the Anthropocene is a vital challenge. This study proposes guiding regional conservation on the basis of ecological processes and finds that the biomass and productivity of reef fish provide complementary information for management.

Electrocatalytic reduction of nitrogen has emerged as a sustainable means for the production of ammonia. Here the authors design bimetallic Fe–Co single-atom catalysts dispersed on carbon that enable unprecedented ammonia yield rates.

Little is known about citizen support for regulation to increase sustainability of global supply chains. This study, via survey experiments, shows that citizens across the 12 largest OECD importing countries prefer strong reporting requirements and enforcement capabilities.

The environmental and socioeconomic costs of annual crops challenge their sustainability. This study reports the successful breeding of perennial rice and assesses its benefits for yields, soil health and farm labour and income as well as its potential geographic range globally.

A multi-objective optimization water–energy model explores the effect of dam re-operation strategies to minimize hydrological alterations in the Lower Mekong. Dam re-operation provides a feasible opportunity for the restoration of key elements of hydrological variability without hindering hydropower production.

Heavy rare earth elements are critical for modern technological applications, including renewable energy technologies, but their extraction can have disastrous environmental impacts. Employing electrokinetic mining techniques can increase recovery efficiency while reducing harmful environmental consequences.

The risks to human well-being of floods in the United States have long been overlooked and underestimated, particularly for low-income and marginalized communities. In Los Angeles, flood risks are disproportionately high for historically disadvantaged populations and communities already facing social inequities.

Potable reuse provides a reliable and sustainable option to drinking-water supply. However, its implementation is hindered by perceptions of potential health risks. Here, comparing potable reuse water with tap water, the authors show a lower level of cytotoxicity in reuse water.

The development of symbiotic infrastructure systems can provide more efficient resource use than single infrastructure improvements. Carbon mitigation and freshwater conservation are possible in China by bridging coal power and wastewater treatment plants.

Conservation efforts were impacted in varied ways by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assessed how South African wildlife ranches, agricultural farms and protected areas weathered the pandemic, finding greater adaptive capacity among more diversified and mixed business models.

Millions of premature deaths each year can be attributed to ambient particulate air pollution. While exposure to harmful particulates decreases in future scenarios with reduced fossil fuel combustion, across much of the globe, socio-demographic factors dominate health outcomes related to air pollution.

Producing sufficient food to support the planet’s growing population places enormous strain on critical ecosystems. Quantifying and mapping the individual and cumulative pressures from greenhouse gases, freshwater use, habitat disturbance and nutrient pollution provides crucial insight into producing lower-impact, more sustainable foods.

More efficient use of solar energy can help the transition to a sustainable energy system. Here the authors show that a plasmonic CuS/CdS heterostructure can convert infrared radiation to visible light, driving oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde and photocatalytic hydrogen evolution, with stable activities for one week.

Membranes are at the heart of various technologies for water, energy and other sustainability relevant areas. Here the authors show a synthetic route to a polymeric membrane that breaks the conductivity–selectivity trade-off and enables exciting performance in a vanadium flow battery.

Vast areas of the Amazon forest have been lost to agriculture in recent decades. This study assesses the potential of intensification—increasing yields on a given area—to produce more soybean in Brazil without further Amazon forest loss and to reduce existing CO₂ emissions.

Wildfire increases are worsening air quality in many regions, undoing gains in pollution control. This study finds that across the United States, exposure to fine particulates in wildfire smoke worsened test scores, especially among younger students, and that most costs are borne by disadvantaged districts.

Early warnings of impending food crises can provide valuable time to mitigate their worst impacts, but droughts have proven difficult to predict. Soil moisture autocorrelation measured by remote sensing satellites advances our ability to anticipate food security crises resulting from drought.