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Pollution, climate change, depleted water reserves and a reduction in biodiversity are among the most alarming consequences of the harm inflicted on the environment by humans’ uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources. The extent of damage is huge and will affect the well-being of future generations. This selection of News, Comment, Review and Research articles from Nature and relevant Nature Research Journals explores the priorities for building a sustainable future.
The adoption of the Paris Agreement is a historic milestone for the global response to the threat of climate change. Scientists are now being challenged to investigate a 1.5 °C world — which will require an accelerated effort from the geoscience community.
The tremendous gains in crop yields seen over the twentieth century were underpinned by fertilizer use and manipulation of the aboveground parts of the plant. To meet the food demands of the twenty-first century, plant scientists must turn their attention belowground.
Drought management is inefficient because feedbacks between drought and people are not fully understood. In this human-influenced era, we need to rethink the concept of drought to include the human role in mitigating and enhancing drought.
If emerging technologies such as nanotechnology are to reach their full potential we need to radically change our approach to risk, argues Andrew D. Maynard.
The future of the bioeconomy requires global agreement on metrics and the creation of a dispute resolution centre, say Roeland Bosch, Mattheüs van de Pol and Jim Philp.
Gathering data that answer particular questions is the most effective way to support the Sustainable Development Goals, say Keith Shepherd and colleagues.
The use of silver nanoparticles to clean clothes and the use of magnetite nanoparticles to clean water provide contrasting illustrations of the potential environmental consequences of nanotechnology, as Chris Toumey explains.
Meeting global food needs requires strategies for storing rainwater and retaining soil moisture to bridge dry spells, urge Johan Rockström and Malin Falkenmark.
Gross domestic product is a misleading measure of national success. Countries should act now to embrace new metrics, urge Robert Costanza and colleagues.
Irrigation-intensive industries in former Soviet republics have sucked water bodies dry. Olli Varis calls for economic reform to ease environmental and social tensions.
Countries should follow China's lead and boost markets for water, wind and solar power technologies to drive down costs, say John A. Mathews and Hao Tan.
Tackling pollution and using different grades of water for different tasks is more efficient than making all water potable, say Tao Tao and Kunlun Xin.
Investment and policies must support cheap, clean energy technologies to cut both poverty and climate change, say Reid Detchon and Richenda Van Leeuwen.
Carbon dioxide is an abundant resource, but difficult for industry to use effectively. A simple reaction might allow it to be used to make commercial products more sustainably than with current processes. See Letter p.215
Pollution from atmospheric nitrogen deposition is a major threat to biodiversity. The 160-year-old Park Grass experiment has uniquely documented this threat and demonstrated how nitrogen reductions lead to recovery. See Letter p.401
A modelling study argues that comprehensive policy change could limit Australia's environmental pollution while maintaining a materials-intensive path to economic growth. But other paths are worth considering. See Article p.49
A genetically modified rice with more starch in its grains also provides fewer nutrients for methane-producing soil microbes. This dual benefit might help to meet the urgent need for globally sustainable food production. See Letter p.602
Two studies provide evidence that bees cannot taste or avoid neonicotinoid pesticides, and that exposure to treated crops affects reproduction in solitary bees as well as bumblebee colony growth and reproduction. See Letters p.74 & p.77
A meta-analysis at a local scale reveals that land-use change has caused species richness to decline by approximately 8.1% on average globally, mainly as a result of large increases in croplands and pastures. See Article p.45
How much more of Earth's fossil fuels can we extract and burn in the short- to medium-term future and still avoid severe global warming? A model provides the answer, and shows where these 'unburnable' reserves are. See Letter p.187
A global map of the potential economic benefits of roads together with the environmental damage they can inflict provides a planning tool for sustainable development. See Letter p.229
An experiment studying people's willingness to sacrifice personal gains so that resources are passed to future generations shows that this occurs only when extractions by free-riders are curbed by majority rule. See Letter p.220
The ultimate goal of the solar-cell industry is to make inexpensive devices that are highly efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. The advent of perovskite semiconductors could be the key to reaching this goal. See Letter p.395
The conversion of poor-quality arable lands to grassland has prevented soil erosion and sequestered carbon. A study finds that greenhouse gases will be emitted if these lands return to cultivation, especially if they are ploughed.
An innovative use of catch statistics shows that climate change has already influenced the composition of species in fisheries around the world, and thereby the fish that we eat. See Letter p.365
An analysis shows that fuel made from wild, herbaceous vegetation grown on land currently unsuitable for cultivating field crops could contribute substantially to the United States' targets for biofuel production. See Letter p.514
From concrete to plastics, the megatonnes of stuff in the built environment are mostly manufactured and used with little thought for waste and pollution. Radical moves are afoot to refashion the urban fabric.
Many governments agreed to limit global mean temperature change to below 2 °C, yet this level has not been assessed scientifically. A synthesis of the literature suggests that temperature is the best available target quantity, but a safe level is uncertain.
Recent research has shown that while large fauna and flowering plants in the Antarctic are scarce, there are considerable levels of marine and terrestrial biodiversity, particularly the microbiota; what drives it, and how the Antarctic can meet conservation targets, are the subject of this review.
Formal criteria must be met to define a new human-driven epoch; the geological evidence appears to do so, with 1610 and 1964 both likely to satisfy the requirements for the start of the Anthropocene.
As incomes grow, diets change, with varying impacts on human health and the environment; here the links are examined and suggestions made for diets that both improve health and minimize environmental impacts.
The United States is one of the largest soybean exporters in the world. An analysis of meteorological and field-trial data spanning the past 20 years suggests that climatic changes have reduced US soybean yields by around 30%.
Current food production systems are heavily dependent on synthetic inputs that threaten the environment and human wellbeing. Results from multi-site field experiments in Thailand, China and Vietnam reveal that surrounding rice fields with nectar-producing plants significantly reduces pest numbers and the need for insecticide applications, while increasing yields.
Anthropogenic emissions of reactive nitrogen have had severe environmental impacts. An analysis of reactive nitrogen emissions from the production, consumption and transport of commodities attributes roughly a quarter to international trade.
Hybrid membranes made from protein amyloid fibrils and activated porous carbon can be used to remove heavy metal ions and radioactive waste from water.
An alternative material to activated carbon for water remediation is reported: a porous material based on crosslinked cyclodextrins that is better than activated carbons at adsorbing a range of pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other anthropogenic pollutants.
This Progress Article reviews recent developments in analytical methods used for nanomaterial analysis and highlights opportunities for methods used in environmental toxicology to be applied in human toxicology and vice versa.
Many sub-Saharan countries are failing to include climate information in long-term development planning. Ensuring climate-resilient development requires a step change in how medium- to long-term climate information is produced, communicated and utilized in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.
A study of the recovery potential of over 800 of the world's coral reefs shows that 83% of fished reefs are missing more than half their expected biomass, with severe consequences for key ecosystem functions; protection from fishing would allow full recovery in 35 years on average, but in 59 years for the most degraded reefs.
To limit global warming to a rise of 2 °C compared to pre-industrial levels, we cannot use all of our fossil fuel reserves; here an integrated assessment model shows that this temperature limit implies that we must leave unused a third of our oil reserves, half of our gas reserves and over 80 per cent of our coal reserves during the next 40 years, and indicates where these are geographically located.
Data-driven analytical techniques can quantify the expected return of alternative research efforts relative to their cost, and can be used to prioritize research investments as shown here for hazard classification of some nanomaterials.
Those concerned with human responses to climate-related impacts increasingly use resilience as a framing concept. This Perspective critiques dominant approaches to resilience building and advocates a human livelihoods-based path.
A multilayer photonic structure is described that strongly reflects incident sunlight while emitting heat selectively through an atmospheric transparency window to outer space; this leads to passive cooling under direct sunlight of 5 degrees Celsius below ambient air temperature, which has potential applications in air-conditioning and energy efficiency.
A global meta-analysis of conservation agriculture principles indicates that the potential contribution of no-till to the sustainable intensification of agriculture is more limited than often assumed.
It has been hoped that making abundant natural gas available by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) would reduce greenhouse gas emissions but now modelling shows that increased consumption will have limited effect on climate change.
Economic development improves the conditions of human life, but at a cost to the natural environment. Research now estimates the relationship between economic development and the carbon intensity of human well-being—the ratio of anthropogenic carbon emissions to average life expectancy at birth—globally, over 40 years. Most of the countries studied, including African nations over recent decades, followed unsustainable paths of development.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an important and increasing component of marine conservation strategy, but their effectiveness is variable and debated; now a study has assembled data from a global sample of MPAs and demonstrates that effectiveness depends on five key properties: whether any fishing is allowed, enforcement levels, age, size and degree of isolation.
The mean temperature of the catch, an index designed to characterize the effect of climate change on global fisheries catch, increased at a rate of 0.19 degrees Celsius per decade between 1970 and 2006, showing that ocean warming has already affected global fisheries.
A comparative assessment of six alternative cropping systems over 20 years shows that, once well established, successional herbaceous vegetation grown on marginal lands has a direct greenhouse gas emissions mitigation capacity that rivals that of purpose-grown crops.
Agriculture is often viewed as a source of problems needing innovative solutions. But agriculture can actually be a source of innovations for the bioeconomy, if researchers embrace the cultural changes needed.
Soil microorganisms have long been known to aid plants through nitrogen fixation and water and nutrient exchange. Now researchers are unearthing new ways in which this subterranean biome affects plant performance.
Plant science has an important part to play in meeting the global food security challenge. But, advances will be most effective if better coupled with agronomic science and the broader food security agenda.
Raising the water productivity of crops, such that they yield more with less water, is one route to raising food production over the coming century. To achieve this goal, breeders must look beyond the conservative strategies that plants employ to cope with drought in the wild.
The history of attempts to spread scientific know-how beyond western centres of excellence is littered with failures. Capacity building needs long-term commitment, a critical mass of trainees, and a supportive home environment.
Transgenic American cotton resistant to lepidopteran pests increases yields and revenues while reducing pesticide use compared to non-GM varieties. However, when grown without artificial irrigation the economic benefits over Asiatic cotton are less clear.
Consistent with their historical focus on the functional utility of plants, botanical gardens have an important opportunity to help ensure global food and ecosystem security by expanding their living collections, research and education programmes to emphasize agriculture and its impacts.
Agricultural research is experiencing a resurgence. The Gates Foundation is leading the charge in the hopes of solving food security in the developing world.
An effort aimed at protecting ecosystems, modelled on the agency battling climate change, will need protecting from powerful enemies, warns Ehsan Masood.
The increase in amplitude of the atmospheric carbon dioxide cycle over the past fifty years can be attributed in part to the intensification of agriculture in the Northern Hemisphere.
Increases in agricultural productivity are shown, using production statistics and a carbon accounting model, to explain as much as a quarter of the observed increase in the seasonal amplitude of the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric carbon dioxide cycle.
Evolving agricultural practices dramatically increased crop production in the twentieth century. Two studies now find that this has altered the seasonal flux of atmospheric carbon dioxide. See Letters p.394 & p.398
In order to limit climate warming, CO2 emissions must remain below fixed quota. An evaluation of past emissions suggests that at 2014 emissions rates, the total quota will probably be exhausted within the next 30 years.
Renewable energy requires infrastructures built with metals whose extraction requires more and more energy. More mining is unavoidable, but increased recycling, substitution and careful design of new high-tech devices will help meet the growing demand.
An analysis reveals the huge impact of human activity on the nitrogen cycle in China. With global use of Earth's resources rising per head, the findings call for a re-evaluation of the consumption patterns of developed societies. See Letter p.459
Data on bulk nitrogen deposition, plant foliar nitrogen and crop nitrogen uptake in China between ad 1980 and ad 2010 show that the average annual bulk deposition of nitrogen increased by approximately 8 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare during that period and that nitrogen deposition rates in the industrialized and agriculturally intensified regions of China are as high as the peak levels of deposition in northwestern Europe in the 1980s.
An index assessing the health of the oceans gives a global score of 60 out of 100. But the idea that a single number can encompass both environmental status and the benefits that the oceans provide for humans may prove controversial. See Article p.615
This study develops a wide-ranging index to assess the many factors that contribute to the health and benefits of the oceans, and the scores for all costal nations are assessed.
A comprehensive carbon dioxide mass balance analysis shows that net global carbon uptake has increased by about 0.05 billion tonnes per year over the past 50 years and that in that time the global carbon uptake has almost doubled, making it unlikely that land and ocean carbon sinks have decreased on a global scale.
Careful analysis reveals that the global uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions by carbon sinks has doubled during the past 50 years — but the fractions of this absorbed by land and by sea remain unclear. See Letter p.70
If architecture is 'design for living', one of its greatest challenges is how to live with the masses of waste we excrete. Four pioneers in green sanitation design outline solutions to a dilemma too often shunted down the pan.
Two decades ago the first Earth Summit raised the question of how biological diversity loss alters ecosystem functioning and affects humanity; this Review looks at the progress made towards answering this question.
International trade is the underlying cause of 30% of threatened animal species extinctions, according to a modelling analysis of the impact of global supply chains and consumption patterns on biodiversity. See Letter p.109
There is evidence that human influence may be forcing the global ecosystem towards a rapid, irreversible, planetary-scale shift into a state unknown in human experience.
Biodiversity threats from Red Lists are linked with patterns of international trade, identifying the ultimate instigators of the threats; developed countries tend to be net importers of implicated commodities, driving biodiversity decline in developing countries.
A meta-analysis of agricultural systems shows that organic yields are mostly lower than those from conventional farming, but that organic crops perform well in some contexts. Agricultural scientists discuss whether the conclusions of the study should change farming practices and management. See Letter p.229
Pathogenic fungi are increasingly contributing to the global emerging disease burden, threatening biodiversity and imposing increasing costs on ecosystem health, hence steps must be taken to tighten biosecurity worldwide to reduce the rate of fungal disease emergence.