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Cattle are replacing wildlife in many African savannas. This field study finds that wild megaherbivores, such as elephants, increased soil carbon and nitrogen, and hence soil fertility, normally lost when only cattle are present.
A dynamic macrosimulation study of three scenarios finds that policies for social prosperity and low-carbon emissions are economically and politically feasible.
The production of lithium requires the purification of lithium chloride, which is expensive and unsustainable. A new method allows the production of high-purity electrolytic lithium from low-purity lithium chloride using solid-state electrolyte, with substantial reductions in costs and environmental impacts.
Water use in river basins is an age-old resource-management question, but it is rare to quantify consumption by specific sectors. The Colorado River is being overused for beef and dairy production, endangering the entire river ecosystem.
Inequality—wealth concentration among few people—stimulates direct foreign investment in agriculture, leading to flex-crop expansion and associated deforestation in Latin America and Southeast Asia, as found in this econometric study.
Physicochemical treatments of heavy-metal pollution in waste water have several environmental and structural disadvantages. This Article shows that sulfide-producing yeasts are able to remove mercury, lead and copper from real-world water samples and offer a platform for metal re-extraction.
Two-dimensional lamellar membranes for water purification are promising but suffer from swelling that reduces their ion sieving performance in water. This study reports easy-to-fabricate, non-swelling MXene membranes prepared by the intercalation of Al3+ ions that could be scalable.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon affects both older (primary) and younger (secondary) forests. This study finds that most forest loss over the period 2008–2014 was from secondary forests and that the almost 190% rise in deforestation buffered losses from primary forests.
Modern land management often assumes that past human activity shaped iconic landscapes. This study finds that climate, rather than indigenous activity, controlled fire severity in New England, with open landscapes developing after deforestation for European agriculture.
Agriculture transforms the Earth and risks crossing thresholds for a healthy planet. This study finds almost half of current food production crosses such boundaries, as for freshwater use, but that transformation towards more sustainable production and consumption could support 10.2 billion people.
Recent policies to address wildfires mainly addressed risk-related challenges to conduct prescribed fires, but barriers related to resources and regulations need further action, according to a mixed-methods study.
Urbanization and economic development fuel demand for sand, used for concrete. This study finds that sediment loads are insufficient to replace the sand mined from the Mekong River delta, with mining rates high enough to make river banks unstable.
Natural resource management involves complex relationships that are affected by data and knowledge limitations. Mental modelling can harness the wisdom of a crowd of stakeholders.
Double cropping can increase production from a given area of land. This study finds that maize ethanol produced from a second crop with soybeans in west central Brazil can reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared with gasoline and also have economic and employment benefits.
An international arrangement of transferable fishing rights and biomass-based allocation can incentivize establishing Marine Protected Areas while promoting the economy.
By passively evaporating water from waste streams, evaporation ponds work with different waste streams but need large areas due to low evaporation rates. This study shows that a photo-thermal device converting sunlight into mid-infrared radiation could enhance evaporation and reduce land needs.
A novel method to assess the impacts of large-scale conservation interventions on household wealth while capturing local heterogeneity reveals small and variable impacts of a nationwide conservation programme in Tanzania.
Increased electricity availability has been posited as a boost for gender equity by providing women with access to appliances. However, social and household norms could mitigate this access, as this mixed-methods study investigates.
Current methods to remove oil microdroplets from wastewater are ineffective at the variable pH conditions commonly found in wastewater. This study presents a surface-engineered sponge that synergistically combines surface chemistry, charge and roughness, providing a solution to this problem.
Concentrations of glyphosate, a common herbicide, in water can be problematic due to its toxicity. Using both artificial and real water samples, this study shows the sustainability advantages of using magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles to remove glyphosate from water.