Articles in 2023

Heavy-duty vehicles are responsible for a substantial portion of road emissions from fossil-fuelled vehicles and cause harmful air pollution. Transitioning to electric heavy-duty vehicles would provide substantial health benefits, especially in Black and Hispanic/Latino urban neighbourhoods.

Clean-up of oil spills is a global challenge because current methods are ineffective when facing highly viscous oil with low fluidity. Here the authors develop a tool for efficient and high-throughput clean-up of highly viscous oil spills.

Rangelands provide critical ecosystem and societal services and are central to livestock husbandry across the United States. How these considerations are balanced, and possibly expanded on, will shape the future of rangeland ecosystems and communities moving into the future.

Coral reefs and related fish populations are under threat of extinction unless additional conservation measures are put in place. Focusing on 12 countries with diverse income and tropical reef proximity, this study analyses the willingness of the public to pay for global coral and reef fish conservation.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical produced in large quantities for use primarily in the manufacturing of plastics. However, its adverse effects on human health are driving the development of safer and more sustainable alternatives. Now, a synthetic route enables such an alternative, starting from renewable lignin biomass.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an essential building block for manufacturing plastics, but its adverse health effects have become a major concern. Here the authors show a zeolite-catalysed synthetitic route to bio-renewable BPA alternatives that feature excellent safety and preserve efficacy of function.

Air quality improvement has benefitted large portions of forests in the USA over the past 20 years. However, although terrestrial ecosystems are now better protected, sensitive species still experience harmful impacts, which could lead to biodiversity loss through shifts in forest composition.

This season’s wildfires have wreaked havoc for local communities, summer tourists and densely populated cities more than 1,000 km away. International cooperation is urgently needed to ensure humans’ sustainable future with increasing wildfires.

Levees can obscure the public perception of flood risk, reflected in accelerated rates of development in floodplains relative to surrounding areas. Effective regulation and legislative measures can reverse this effect for more sustainable management.

Reductions in air pollution in the United States over the past two decades have led to positive results for forest growth and survival. However, further measures are needed to protect sensitive tree species and bolster forest biodiversity

A data-driven framework has been developed to assess the carbon emissions of mobile networks in China, revealing that the launch of 5G networks leads to a decline in carbon efficiency. A deep reinforcement learning algorithm, DeepEnergy, is proposed to increase the carbon efficiency of mobile networks and reduce carbon emissions.

Addressing the global water crisis requires technologies suited to harvest alternative sources of freshwater. Now, a bifunctional fog harvester offers a promising avenue for concurrent water collection and decontamination.

Our daily lives and economic activities increasingly rely on 5G mobile networks, but their carbon emissions are concerning. Here the authors quantify the carbon emissions of 5G mobile networks in China and propose a strategy to reduce them, paving the way to sustainable mobile communication infrastructures.

Atmospheric water harvesting is challenging due to the presence of airborne pollutants. The authors show a device design that enables fog capture with simultaneous pollutant decomposition powered by sunlight.

Despite being one of the most managed resources on earth, water availability and access can be the subject of illegal trade. These markets and their governance need research as water becomes scarcer.

Restoring forests is a policy priority globally, but often, little attention is paid to the type of forest being restored, which matters for biodiversity and livelihoods. Using a map of forest management types, this study assessed the extent of managed forests in recent tree-cover gains globally.

Radiative cooling textiles provide a sustainable means for personal thermal management. Here the nano-textile design realizes an unprecedented combination of human body cooling in both indoor and outdoor conditions without compromising wearability.

As the availability of affordable freshwater in urban settings becomes ever more urgent around the world, this study looks at how an unregulated, informal market meets demands at the expense of groundwater resources.

Aromatic compounds have broad applications in our daily life, but their production currently relies heavily on fossil resources. Now, a strategy enables synthesis of benzenoid aromatics from bioderived feedstock, paving the way to the more sustainable production of aromatics.