Environmental sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pharmaceuticals are widespread contaminants in surface waters. Here, Richmond and colleagues show that dozens of pharmaceuticals accumulate in  food chains of streams, including in predators in adjacent terrestrial ecosystems.

    • Erinn K. Richmond
    • , Emma J. Rosi
    •  & Michael R. Grace

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Investment in watershed services programs is growing, however the factors that contribute to sustainability of such programs are unclear. Here the authors use a large database of cities around the world to show that payment schemes are more likely to be present in watersheds with more agricultural land and less protected areas.

    • Chelsie L. Romulo
    • , Stephen Posner
    •  & Robert I. McDonald

  • Article
    | Open Access

    UNESCO World Heritage located in low-lying coastal areas is increasingly at risk from flooding and erosion due to sea-level rise. This study shows that up to 82% of cultural World Heritage sites located in the Mediterranean will be at risk from coastal flooding and over 93% from coastal erosion by 2100 under high-end sea-level rise.

    • Lena Reimann
    • , Athanasios T. Vafeidis
    •  & Richard S. J. Tol

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drivers of crop yield variability require quantification, and historical records can help in improving understanding. Here, Webber et al. report that drought stress will remain a key driver of yield losses in wheat and maize across Europe, and benefits from CO2 will be limited in low-yielding years.

    • Heidi Webber
    • , Frank Ewert
    •  & Daniel Wallach

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rising demand for ruminant meat and dairy products in developing nations drives increasing GHG and ammonia emissions from livestock. Authors show here that only long-term adoption of global best-practice in sustainable intensification buffered by a short-term coping strategy of green-source trading can offer a way forward.

    • Yuanyuan Du
    • , Ying Ge
    •  & Raphael K. Didham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Correlations between prehistoric eruptions and other phenomena depend on accurate dating of the eruption. Here the authors show that magmatic CO2 in groundwater can bias radiocarbon ages for eruptions and that plateaux of carbon isotopic values in tree ring sequences biased by magmatic CO2 foreshadow major eruptions.

    • Richard N. Holdaway
    • , Brendan Duffy
    •  & Ben Kennedy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Peatlands recovering from acidification release dissolved organic carbon (DOC), but no biological role has yet been identified in this process. Here, the authors show that pH increases enhance phenol oxidase activity, pore-water DOC concentrations and lead to greater abundances in Actinobacteria and fungi.

    • Hojeong Kang
    • , Min Jung Kwon
    •  & Chris Freeman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    River capture acts as one river steals the neighboring headwaters, which is a dramatic natural process for mountain landscapes evolution. Here the authors show a stream piracy reversed flow in a major river resulting in waterfall formation, bedrock gorge incision, and widespread topographic disequilibrium.

    • Niannian Fan
    • , Zhongxin Chu
    •  & Xingnian Liu

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Research and debate are intensifying on complementing CO2 emissions reductions with hypothetical climate geoengineering techniques. Here, the authors assess their potentials, uncertainties and risks, and show that they cannot yet be relied on to significantly contribute to meeting the Paris Agreement temperature goals.

    • Mark G. Lawrence
    • , Stefan Schäfer
    •  & Jürgen Scheffran

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Yields vary between different cropping systems, though their temporal stability has not been quantified. Here, Knapp and van der Heijden present a meta-analysis showing that yields in organic agriculture have, per unit food produced, a lower temporal stability.

    • Samuel Knapp
    •  & Marcel G. A. van der Heijden

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite their extensive use, the absolute dating of tree-ring chronologies has not hitherto been independently validated at the global scale. Here, the identification of distinct 14C excursions in 484 individual tree rings, enable the authors to confirm the dating of 44 dendrochronologies from five continents.

    • Ulf Büntgen
    • , Lukas Wacker
    •  & Giles H. F. Young

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although it is well known that silica can dissolve in water, the precise mechanism is unclear. Here, the authors employ sum frequency generation spectroscopy to probe the interfacial water structure reporting directly on the underlying dissolution mechanism, which appears to be auto-catalytic.

    • Jan Schaefer
    • , Ellen H. G. Backus
    •  & Mischa Bonn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soil thickness is a key parameter in earth system models, yet how it varies spatially at catchment scales is largely unknown due to measurement challenges. Here, the authors show that a continuous field of thicknesses can be predicted using high-resolution topography and a few soil thickness measurements.

    • Nicholas R. Patton
    • , Kathleen A. Lohse
    •  & Mark S. Seyfried

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Our understanding of phosphorus (P) cycling in soils, a basis for many ecosystem services, has been limited by the complexity of P forms and processes. Here the authors use spectroscopic and isotopic techniques to estimate turnover times of P pools and tease apart biologically-driven and geochemically-driven P fluxes.

    • Julian Helfenstein
    • , Federica Tamburini
    •  & Emmanuel Frossard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The role ice sheets play in the silica cycle over glacial−interglacial timescales remains unclear. Here, based on the measurement of silica isotopes in Greenland meltwater and a nearby marine sediment core, the authors suggest expanding ice sheets considerably increased isotopically light silica in the oceans.

    • Jon R. Hawkings
    • , Jade E. Hatton
    •  & Martyn Tranter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forests of the Amazon Basin have experienced frequent and severe droughts in recent years with significant impacts on their carbon cycling. Here, using satellite LiDAR samples from 2003 to 2008, the authors show the long-term legacy of these droughts with persistent loss of carbon stocks after the 2005 drought.

    • Yan Yang
    • , Sassan S. Saatchi
    •  & Ranga B. Myneni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land-based mitigation for meeting the Paris climate target must consider the carbon cycle impacts of land-use change. Here the authors show that when bioenergy crops replace high carbon content ecosystems, forest-based mitigation could be more effective for CO2 removal than bioenergy crops with carbon capture and storage.

    • Anna B. Harper
    • , Tom Powell
    •  & Shijie Shu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fine-root lifetimes and carbon inputs from roots into soil impact carbon cycle-climate feedbacks yet remain poorly constrained. Here, using annual-growth rings and radiocarbon dating, the authors show that the chronological age of fine roots is substantially younger than that of the carbon used for their growth.

    • Emily F. Solly
    • , Ivano Brunner
    •  & Frank Hagedorn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rivers and streams are important sources of carbon dioxide and methane; however, the drivers of these streambed gas fluxes are poorly understood. Here, the authors show that temperature sensitivity of streambed greenhouse gas emissions varies with substrate, organic matter content and geological origin.

    • Sophie A. Comer-Warner
    • , Paul Romeijn
    •  & Stefan Krause

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lakes, reservoirs, and other ponded waters are common in large river basins yet their influence on nitrogen budgets is often indistinct. Here, the authors show how a ponded waters’ relative size, shape, and degree of connectivity to the river network control nitrogen removal.

    • Noah M. Schmadel
    • , Judson W. Harvey
    •  & Durelle Scott

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The recovery of North American forests is likely to impact their capacity as a carbon sink. Here, Zhu et al. show a growth in aboveground biomass in various climate change scenarios, with these forests expected to sequester no more than 22% more carbon than current levels by the 2080s.

    • Kai Zhu
    • , Jian Zhang
    •  & Yiqi Luo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The concentration of formic acid in Earth’s atmosphere is under-predicted by atmospheric models. Here the authors show that acetaldehyde photo-tautomerizes to vinyl alcohol under tropospheric conditions, with subsequent oxidation via OH radicals supplying up to 60% of total modeled formic acid production over oceans.

    • Miranda F. Shaw
    • , Bálint Sztáray
    •  & Scott H. Kable

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Imaging the internal structure of faults remains challenging using conventional seismometers. Here, the authors use fibre-optic cables used for telecommunications to obtain strain data and identify faults and volcanic dykes in Iceland and suggest that fibre-optic cables could be used for hazard assessment.

    • Philippe Jousset
    • , Thomas Reinsch
    •  & Charlotte M. Krawczyk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rainforest conversion to plantations driven by global demand for agricultural products generates high environmental costs. Here, the authors show that the high oil palm plantation production efficiency is associated with decreased carbon storage and slower organic matter cycling that affect ecosystem services.

    • Thomas Guillaume
    • , Martyna M. Kotowska
    •  & Yakov Kuzyakov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent measurements in the Amazon rainforest indicate missing sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Here the authors show that soil microorganisms are a strong, unaccounted source of highly reactive sesquiterpenes, a class of VOCs that can regulate ozone chemistry within the forest canopy.

    • E. Bourtsoukidis
    • , T. Behrendt
    •  & J. Williams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Groundwater resources are coming under increasing pressure leading to water quality loss. Here, the authors find that recent groundwater pumping has led to increasing arsenic concentrations in the San Joaquin Valley, California aquifers from arsenic residing in the pore water of clay strata released by overpumping.

    • Ryan Smith
    • , Rosemary Knight
    •  & Scott Fendorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microplastic (MP) pollution in polar regions is a growing environmental concern, yet little is known regarding the role of sea-ice as a sink and transport vector of MPs. Here, the authors show that MPs in sea-ice have no uniform polymer composition and observe unique MP patterns in different sea-ice horizons.

    • Ilka Peeken
    • , Sebastian Primpke
    •  & Gunnar Gerdts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite its chemical importance, the evolution of atmospheric iodine concentrations over time is unknown. Here, the authors show that North Atlantic atmospheric iodine levels have tripled since 1950, and propose ozone pollution and enhanced biological production Arctic sea ice thinning as a primary driver.

    • Carlos A. Cuevas
    • , Niccolò Maffezzoli
    •  & Alfonso Saiz-Lopez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Columnar joints in lavas form during cooling, but the temperature this occurs at is unclear. Here, the authors perform thermo-mechanical experiments on basaltic rocks to examine the temperature of columnar joints in lavas and find that failure occurs at 890–840 °C, which is below the solidus temperature of 980 °C.

    • Anthony Lamur
    • , Yan Lavallée
    •  & Fabian B. Wadsworth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impact of plastic debris floating at the sea surface on the lowest trophic levels of the food web remains unknown. Here, using leaching experiments, the authors show that plastics release dissolved organic carbon into the ambient seawater that is rapidly taken up by marine microbes stimulating their growth.

    • Cristina Romera-Castillo
    • , Maria Pinto
    •  & Gerhard J. Herndl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wildland fire seasons in the United States are getting longer, yet the impacts of fire on water availability at the regional scale are unclear. Here the authors show that fire increased annual river flow throughout the West, while prescribed burns in the subtropical Southeast had limited impact on river flow.

    • Dennis W. Hallema
    • , Ge Sun
    •  & Steven G. McNulty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drought impacts on tropical forest soil carbon and greenhouse gas dynamics are poorly understood. Here, the authors investigate the impacts of the 2015 drought in a forest in Puerto Rico and find that it caused shifts in soil carbon dioxide and methane emissions and led to a decrease in available phosphorus.

    • Christine S. O’Connell
    • , Leilei Ruan
    •  & Whendee L. Silver

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite the biological importance of sulfones, available synthetic methods usually involve toxic metals and reagents or harsh conditions. Here, the authors report an environmentally benign procedure for the metal-free carbon-sulfur bond formation of allylic sulfones in neutral aqueous medium at room temperature.

    • Peizhong Xie
    • , Jinyu Wang
    •  & Teck-Peng Loh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet transfer water to the bed when they drain, but the impact is unknown. Here, the authors use a 3D model to show that lakes drain when fractures form, causing a chain reaction in which cascading lake drainages extend inland and deliver water to previously isolated regions of the bed.

    • Poul Christoffersen
    • , Marion Bougamont
    •  & Rickard Pettersson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microplastics are emerging ocean contaminants, but their fates in the ocean environment are poorly understood. Here the authors show that Antarctic krill digest micro plastics into nano plastics, thereby generating particles of a size that can cross biological and physical barriers.

    • Amanda L. Dawson
    • , So Kawaguchi
    •  & Susan M. Bengtson Nash

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A basic requirement for reconstructing past environmental change is accurate understanding of sediment age. Here, the authors show that the interpretation of a benchmark archive in China has been inaccurate, and that ice volume primarily controls desert dynamics, sediment preservation, and precipitation at the site.

    • T. Stevens
    • , J.-P. Buylaert
    •  & H. Lu

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    The phase state of organic particles in the atmosphere has important consequences for the impact of aerosols on climate, visibility, air quality and health. Here, the authors review the evidence for the formation of amorphous glassy particles and the methods for determining aerosol particle viscosity.

    • Jonathan P. Reid
    • , Allan K. Bertram
    •  & Grazia Rovelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine spatial planning is used to co-ordinate multiple ocean uses, and is frequently informed by tradeoffs and composite metrics. Here, Lester et al. introduce an approach that plans for multiple uses simultaneously whilst balancing individual objectives, using a case study of aquaculture development in California.

    • S. E. Lester
    • , J. M. Stevens
    •  & C. White

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The development of sustainable food systems requires an understanding of potential trade-off between various objectives. Here, Chaudhary et al. examine how different nations score on food system performance across several domains, including environment, nutrition, and sociocultural wellbeing.

    • Abhishek Chaudhary
    • , David Gustafson
    •  & Alexander Mathys

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deforestation carbon emissions from the Brazilian Amazon have declined steeply, but how much drought-induced forest fire emissions add to this process is still unclear. Here the authors show that gross emissions from forest fires are more than half as great as those from deforestation during drought years.

    • Luiz E. O. C. Aragão
    • , Liana O. Anderson
    •  & Sassan Saatchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate impact assessments usually rely on modeling approaches that are either comprehensive but inflexible and inefficient, or lacking sufficient detail. Here the authors describe a framework to assess multi-sectoral climate impacts and show its capability and timely responsiveness to new policies.

    • Erwan Monier
    • , Sergey Paltsev
    •  & Martin Haigh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exposure to ambient particulate matter is a key contributor to disease in India and source attribution is vital for pollution control. Here the authors use a high-resolution regional model to show residential emissions dominate particulate matter concentrations and associated premature mortality.

    • Luke Conibear
    • , Edward W. Butt
    •  & Dominick V. Spracklen

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