Volume 2 Issue 12, December 2019

An international expert panel probes how engineers, architects and behavioural scientists can work together to learn about design behaviour for sustainability — and what all interested scholars and practitioners might learn from it.

Soil-based initiatives to mitigate climate change and restore soil fertility both rely on rebuilding soil organic carbon. Controversy about the role soils might play in climate change mitigation is, consequently, undermining actions to restore soils for improved agricultural and environmental outcomes.

To understand and address sustainability problems, a complex model of human behaviour is proposed, one that co-evolves with their context, as opposed to simpler models.

Sustainability is a function of environmental, economic and social integration. This Review synthesizes knowledge on the many ways biodiversity can support sustainable development.

Recently, ecologists have begun discussing an idea for setting aside half of the Earth for conservation purposes. This study provides some of the first analysis of the impacts of doing so on society, based on assumptions about ecoregions and human footprint.

Substantial water savings can be achieved by coating toilet bowl surfaces to repel liquids, bacteria and viscoelastic solids such as human faeces. In this Article, the authors develop a sprayable, non-fouling coating that can reduce cleaning water consumption by ~90% compared with untreated surfaces.

Nitrogen is critical to crop production but its overuse challenges sustainability. This study finds that, despite intense and growing nitrogenous fertilizer use, Pakistan’s crop yields have risen much more slowly than expected.

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.

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.

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.

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.