Analyses in 2019

Pesticides overuse has led to evolution of resistance but the associated crop yield losses or economic costs at large scale are not known. This study estimates the annual cost of resistance in England for black-grass and calls for national-scale planning to address the problem.

Flooding is the costliest natural disaster. Focusing on the United States, this analysis finds that by 2070 avoided damages exceed land acquisition costs for more than one-third of unprotected natural lands in the 100-year floodplain.

Soil erosion threatens food production and ecosystems. This study finds that soil erosion rates change significantly at national borders, probably reflecting agricultural characteristics that vary among countries.

Adequate methods are needed to study the connections among food consumption and production, energy and water, and environmental impacts. This Analysis presents a set of model-based scenarios and associated Sankey diagrams to facilitate this kind of analysis and formulate response strategies.

Knowing how and why households stop using solid-fuel stoves after adopting clean fuels can inform policies for energy transitions. This study shows that in China over one-third and one-fifth of participants suspended use of solid fuel for cooking and heating, respectively, during the past 20 years.

During the 2004–16 shale-gas development in the Appalachian basin, United States, premature mortality from lower air quality and employment followed a boom-and-bust cycle, whereas climate impacts will persist for generations beyond the activity.

Cities not only develop their transit networks, but are shaped by them in return. This study teases out the effects of public transportation, finding that there is a scale effect for urban areas to benefit from transit investment.

A simulation nesting global and Australian scenarios on how to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals finds that working on all goals jointly has added benefits. In the path to achieve the goals, the last stages will be the most challenging.

Agriculture depends critically on phosphorus fertilizer from rock phosphate. This study finds environmental and health benefits from instead recovering phosphorus from secondary sources, such as sewage and manure.

Governance is one of the critical components for sustainability, but quantification within scenarios and projections of future socioeconomic development has been lacking. This analysis of various pathways looks at how best to overcome ‘weak’ governance and strengthen adaptive capacity.

Based on assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, key research priorities are identified and contrasted with the SDGs and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Sustainable processes for the synthesis of new clinical candidates is a priority in pharmaceutical manufacturing. This study presents a web application to predict the likely efficiencies of proposed synthetic routes before their evaluation in the laboratory.

A global study of fishing near Exclusive Economic Zone boundaries shows that these property rights indeed deter unauthorized fishing.

Diffusion of renewable energy technologies can be constrained by alternative land uses. Here the authors propose the idea of ‘aglectric’ farming and show with modelling how to use agricultural land sustainably for food and energy co-production.

Renewable energy costs have declined in the past but things could change with increasing interest rates. This study shows that in Germany, if interest rates increased to pre-financial crisis levels in 5 years, the levelized cost of solar photovoltaics and onshore wind could rise by 11 and 25%, respectively.

While renewable energy has often included hydropower, dams present their own environmental harms. This Analysis not only projects how much land would be needed for solar power to replace US hydropower, but also provides a model for further analyses in other countries.

Floating treatment wetlands can improve wastewater treatment plant performance. In this Analysis, the authors conducted a three-year study of full-scale floating treatment wetlands in stabilization ponds and showed substantially improved water quality and reduced heavy metal concentrations.

A new estimation of forest cover and loss finds more area but also double the loss rates in recent years, relative to previous estimates. Deforestation increased after a low peak in 2013.

Chinese commitments under the Paris Agreement are premised on a peak in CO₂ emissions by 2030. Using the Kuznets curve and emissions and gross domestic product data from 50 cities in the country, this Analysis predicts that emissions in China could peak between 2021 and 2025, well ahead of the Paris target.

Urban expansion displaces agricultural land elsewhere, indirectly causing loss of natural land cover. A global study finds that this impact is more substantial than previously thought.