News & Views

Oil palm plantations can supplant once biodiverse tropical forests. As planted areas expand, it is vital to plan landscapes to better balance biodiversity and oil palm production. Strategic ‘set-asides’ offer a key approach.

Afforestation on drylands can help mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration, but the water and energy implications can hinder implementation. A study now investigates the environmental and economic potential of afforestation enabled by desalination plants powered by renewable electricity.

Seaweed farming is gaining attention as a potential climate change mitigation solution, but how to achieve such potential is uncertain given current knowledge and practice. A study now explores how expanding seaweed farming for wider human use could reduce carbon emissions from agriculture.

Regulating the temperature inside buildings takes a huge amount of energy, but this cost can be reduced with a smart, durable building envelope that can adapt to different temperatures for heat loss control.

While often perceived as being immune to adverse change, new satellite observations highlight the unexpected impacts of human activities on the world’s protected and intact forests.

Rechargeable aqueous zinc batteries are promising candidates for large-scale energy storage, but their operation is suboptimal at low temperatures. An electrolyte solution comprising two salts now enables unprecedented battery performance across a wide temperature range.

Huge volumes of a diverse range of minerals are required to shift the world to renewable energy. An analysis now shows that many of these are being sourced from the lands of vulnerable people.

Annual grains, domesticated from wild species, have dominated agriculture since the Neolithic. A new study reports how turning to high-yield perennial rice crops could maintain key ecosystem functions while supporting livelihoods.

A lack of regional and international collective action is the greatest barrier to achieving global environmental sustainability. Game theoretic experiments suggest that introducing shared goals could offer a path forward.

Although urgently needed for the decarbonization of our economies, the mining of rare earth elements has a poor environmental record. The use of electrokinetics promises a more efficient extraction while substantially reducing environmental impacts.

Many tropical reefs are also active community fisheries, posing a complex management challenge. Taking into account reef fish turnover as well as biomass could inform better management for both conservation and sustainable use.

Progress on poverty eradication has yet to deliver access to basic services such as electricity and running water for all. Redistribution, better technologies and different lifestyles can address inequality without exacerbating climate change or degrading ecosystems.

A survey study shows that people want their governments to require increased transparency from companies about their supply chains. But it remains unclear how consumers would respond if such policies raised product prices.

Despite growing mountains of electronic waste, only a fraction is recycled. Now, a study meshing material flow and geospatial analysis shows how e-waste pathways could be integrated with virgin mining to build viable strategies around metal supply chains.

Hydrological alterations caused by booming hydropower dams in the Mekong River basin are disrupting aquatic ecosystems and local livelihoods, calling for an urgent rethinking of hydropower development. Alternative operating strategies of existing Mekong dams could help restore the natural hydrological regimes without affecting power generation.

Modelling techniques now allow flood risk to be mapped down to street or even building level in a study showing that floods disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities and particular ethnic groups.

A study of historical trends in nations’ use of phosphorus fertilizers has set targets for crop yield and phosphorus-use efficiency, identifying techniques that can be used to ensure these targets are met by 2050.

Against a backdrop of intense global drought, an innovative method for measuring toxicity to cells has been used to provide further evidence that the quality of potable-reuse water compares well with that from conventional public water supplies.

Private wildlife ranches are considered a mechanism to conserve biodiversity and support livelihoods. Now, a study examines the relative resilience of South African wildlife ranches during the disruptive times of COVID-19.

A method to incorporate highly aligned nanosheets into a polymer matrix provides a promising strategy for fabricating membranes with high ion conductivity and selectivity — a key requirement for some energy-storage technologies.