Articles in 2023

Many of the barriers to progress in addressing environmental problems, such as climate change, are political. This Review illustrates how insight into politics can help policymakers craft strategies to address the ambition gap, the implementation gap and the international action gap.

Plastic pollution forms a major global challenge to the ecosystem. Here the authors show a binuclear catalyst that could degrade various polyesters in an effective and scalable way, providing a promising technological solution to the challenge.

China’s power generation is still based on a centrally planned operation (CPO) as market reforms are slow. This study finds that continuing to rely on the CPO has led to the accumulation of substantial greenhouse gas emissions, and reveals the underlying mechanisms driving emissions.

A historic treaty to protect the oceans has finally been signed off by the United Nations, can we be hopeful now?

Biocrusts are crucial for soil health and sustainability in arid lands; however, human activities are degrading these biocrusts. This study explores the use of solar farms for a low-cost, low-impact and high-capacity approach to regenerate biocrusts. This technique could be used to expand current soil restoration approaches to regional scales.

Arid soils are currently under substantial anthropogenic stress and are globally degrading. Co-operating photovoltaic plants with biocrust nurseries has potential to restore soil health alongside renewable energy production.

A global analysis of income inequality and flood disasters in middle- and high-income countries between 1990 and 2018 shows that unequal countries tend to suffer higher flood fatalities.

As interest in publishing with Nature Sustainability keeps growing, the editorial team reorganizes how it provides feedback to the community.

Urban water crises are an increasingly pressing challenge. A study now shows how unsustainable behaviour fostered by social inequalities undermines water access and, if unaddressed, may lead to increased vulnerability in the long term.

School buses provide crucial transport for millions of children across the United States, but this analysis finds that the diesel exhaust from older buses is impacting their health and that updating the bus fleet nationwide could lead to 1.3 million additional student days of attendance.

Urban water crises, due to droughts and unsustainable water consumption, are becoming increasingly recurrent in metropolitan cities. This study shows the role of social inequalities in such crises, revealing the implications of water overconsumption by privileged social groups and individuals.

Human and natural systems are inextricably intertwined, co-evolving systems. The study presents a new conservation framework incorporating the different roles people can play in ecosystem health, through land stewardship.

Anna Berti Suman is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). She is the principal researcher of the Sensing for Justice (SensJus) project, which explores the applications of civic environmental monitoring for environmental justice.

The world’s largest deltas, home to numerous megacities, are expected to bear the brunt of climate-driven sea-level rise. Now, a study shows that disentangling the human impacts on the Mississippi Delta in the past century can help make these systems more resilient.

Incorporating single atoms into carbon-based catalysts is shown to disrupt their crystal symmetry in a way that improves their catalytic activity. The discovery here could offer a generalized approach for the rational design of electrocatalysts.

Oxygen electrocatalysis is at the heart of a range of clean energy technologies, but the best-performing electrocatalysts rely on precious metals. The authors demonstrate a carbon catalyst design with embedded high-entropy 3d transition metal single atoms that shows excellent catalytic activities.

Global initiatives to expand protected areas focus on controlling ‘above ground’ impacts such as land use, overlooking the potential human impacts on protected areas through groundwater flow. This study analyses the potential extent of these impacts by mapping groundwatersheds.

Dealing with radioactive pollution first requires the detection of radioactive species released to the environment. Here the authors show an ultrasensitive and selective way to detect ⁹⁰Sr, one of the most frequently discharged products from nuclear reactors.

A safe aqueous electrolyte design with hybrid salts and solvents turns a zinc metal anode highly reversible under conditions matching practical operational requirements, paving the way for the future market adoption of more sustainable battery technologies.