Research articles

Understanding the connection between economic inequality and climate change requires rich and reliable data. This study combines recently assembled data on income and wealth inequality with environmental data to shed light on the uneven individual contributions to climate change across the world.

Biodiverse upland Amazonian rainforest is being lost from continued conversion to cropland and pasture. This study combines satellite and household survey data from the Peruvian Amazon to find that access to floodplains reduces clearing of upland forests around riverine communities.

Coastal cities face a compound threat from relative sea-level rise and land subsidence; however, local land subsidence rates are spatially variable and can be difficult to quantify. Remote interferometric radar observations allow high-resolution estimations of local land subsidence to better inform the future of major coastal cities.

In the scramble to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, many nations are examining their agriculture and land-use sectors. In Ireland, while net-zero emissions by 2050 are feasible through a reduction in meat and dairy production and smart land management, carbon neutrality beyond 2050 may prove fleeting.

There is an urgent need to control food pests more sustainably. This study assesses and confirms the potential and feasibility of growing pest insect sex pheromones from high-productivity oil-crop seeds.

Anaemia (having insufficient red blood cells to carry enough oxygen) is a global health burden associated with exposure to air pollution. This study finds large potential in reducing anaemia prevalence in women of reproductive age if India meets its recent clean-air targets.

Protected areas (PAs) are not completely halting biodiversity loss, according to growing evidence. This study shows the limited effectiveness of a large network of PAs despite favourable socio-economic context and high conservation efforts, suggesting that PA functional design matters beyond increasing resources.

Determining the safe operating space for sustainable food production depends on the interactions of multiple processes within the Earth system. Expert knowledge provides critical insight into how these processes interact that improves Earth system modelling and our understanding of the limits of global food production.

A rechargeable aqueous Zn–MnO₂ battery features a combination of favourable sustainability characteristics from safety to cost. The authors deploy advanced characterizations and theoretical calculations to provide fresh insight into the charge storage mechanism, which not only closes an ongoing debate but suggests ways forward.

With a growing demand for minerals, protected areas (PAs) are under pressure to allow mining activities. This study examines the impacts of five policy scenarios under which combinations of PAs allow mining in the Brazilian Amazon, and shows the need for long-term planning to safeguard biodiversity.

While fears of ‘water wars’ have been publicized in recent years, this Article illustrates the complexities surrounding resource availability and socio-political dynamics that may induce, or prevent, conflicts over water in arid landscapes.

Urban regions are growing rapidly worldwide, threatening surrounding habitats, including in drylands. This study finds that indirect impacts to surrounding drylands are more than ten times greater than direct impacts and that such impacted areas contain almost 60% of threatened species globally.

Mechanical soil decontamination is an important tool in remediating contaminated soils. Remediation efforts following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster increased soil erosion and downstream sediment loads that showed reduced ¹³⁷Cs concentrations, but rapid revegetation quickly restored decontaminated landscapes.

Biological invasions involve complex interactions between social and environmental factors, challenging effective management. This study represents the invasion of Minnesota lakes by zebra mussels as a network of interactions and finds that using network metrics can guide effective management.

Intensifying food production sustainably is critical given growing demand and agriculture’s environmental footprint. This meta-analysis finds that practices such as adding organic matter and increasing crop diversity can partly substitute for nitrogen fertilizer to sustain or increase yields.

Why environmental benefits are valued differently across individuals and regions is not well understood. Using large-scale survey data collected across G20 countries, this study finds that a few social indicators explain the diversity in people’s perceptions of environmental benefits.

If people had truly unlimited wants as assumed in economics, pursuing sustainability would be a real challenge. This study provides evidence that most people’s wants are moderate rather than unlimited, suggesting that policies limiting wealth in pursuit of sustainability could be acceptable to many.

The development of complex societies and their agricultural bases underlies key challenges we still face. This study demonstrates sustainable intensification of a pig and millet system that helped feed the earliest complex societies in North China.

The importance of ensuring access to clean drinking water is manifested in UN Sustainable Development Goals. Here, a national-level assessment of tap-water safety shows spatial variations across China. The disparity is correlated with natural and anthropogenic factors and linked to public health-risk rates.

Vehicles are responsible for a large share of urban air pollution, but emissions estimates omit the full driving cycle or focus on only a few vehicles. Using GPS traces, emissions from thousands of private vehicles in three European cities are estimated to identify gross polluters and grossly polluted roads.