Research articles

Continued sea-level rise is driving the intrusion of saltwater into coastal wetlands and shallow groundwater reservoirs. High-resolution aerial images reveal that saltwater intrusion in the US Mid-Atlantic may be worse than previously thought, with costly impacts on regional agriculture.

Lead toxicity of perovskite solar cells is hindering their commercialization, as lead is currently indispensable in making high-performance perovskite solar cells. Here the authors propose a new strategy to address this issue while simultaneously improving the stability and reproducibility of perovskite solar cells.

Failing to keep the increase of global mean temperature below 1.5 °C will have multiple negative implications. A study maps the annual changes in cooling demand, showing the most affected countries by warming, if the global mean temperature rises from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C

Understanding the role of biodiversity in maintaining the provision of Nature’s Contributions to People is critical to sustainability. This study finds a substantial contribution of high-biodiversity areas to the regulation of air quality, climate and freshwater quantity, with important implications for conservation efforts.

Understanding the drivers of forest losses and their economic implications is key to designing efficient climate policies. This study simulates market-driven land-use decisions to identify the factors contributing to forest losses, revealing such losses, their trends, temporal variation and social value.

The Rotterdam Convention addresses the international trade of hazardous chemicals, but its effectiveness is rarely evaluated. This study analyses international trade flows of highly hazardous chemicals covered by the Convention, revealing that large-scale illegal trade continues to have disastrous impacts.

The authors deploy a hydrotropic solubilization strategy turning an otherwise poorly water-soluble acetate into a salt for a high-concentration aqueous electrolyte that features low cost and environmental sustainability and enables good performance of zinc batteries.

Exposure to wildfires is increasing across the continental United States. These risks are growing not only for populations living at the wildland–urban interface but also for critical infrastructure, such as roads and transmission lines.

While the type of vehicles matters a great deal for the quantity of emissions being generated, driver behaviour is also a major factor. This paper uses driving trajectory data to project how much carbon in the atmosphere could be prevented through calm driving through 2050.

Energy efficient brick production is crucial for the carbon footprint, especially in countries with a continuously expanding built environment. This study models Indian brick production and reveals a large underreporting in official energy consumption estimates, as well as key drivers affecting its performance.

Where to invest to help transform current livestock systems towards sustainability and climate resilience is currently unclear. This study identifies priority locations for investments supporting climate change adaptation and mitigation across 132 low- and middle-income countries, at mid- and low latitudes.

Fertilizer supply is highly sensitive to international disruptions. Geospatially differentiated strategies, including integrated inorganic and organic management to N-deficient regions, can bolster global food security

Global aquatic foods are a key source of nutrition, but how their production is influenced by anthropogenic environmental changes is not well known. The vulnerability of global blue food systems to main environmental stressors and the related spatial impacts across blue food nations are now quantified.

Whether or not marine protected areas (MPAs) deliver positive outcomes for both people and nature remains a challenging question. Using a statistical matching approach, this study provides quantitative evidence of co-benefits for fish and people associated with MPAs in the Mesoamerican region.

Current understanding of how the cropland nitrogen cycle will respond to elevated atmospheric CO₂ is limited. By modelling global nitrogen budgets under elevated CO₂ and providing a monetized impact assessment, this study shows the synergistic effects of elevated CO₂ alone on global croplands.

Chemical upcycling of polyolefin plastic waste over metal-based catalysts is crucial for the circular economy, but currently available methods are incompatible with chlorine-contaminated feedstocks. Here the authors propose a two-stage dechlorination–hydrogenolysis (or hydrocracking) upcycling strategy to tackle this problem.

Current models, based on incremental changes in a single stress, have limited ability to anticipate abrupt ecosystem changes due to climate and human activities. Experiments on four models simulating ecosystems with a range of anthropogenic interactions show how much earlier abrupt change can happen.

A more in-depth understanding of the link between biodiversity and human well-being can help the design of nature-based public health interventions. This study analyses a database of species’ effect traits (colours, sounds and smells) and the diverse well-being responses that they generate.

Food production stability depends on yield, and planted and harvested areas, but most research has only studied yield response to climate. This study finds that planted area and harvestable fraction contribute substantially to US crop production shocks, emphasizing their key role in food system stability.