Environmental impact articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Datasets from in situ warming experiments across 28 arctic and alpine tundra sites covering  a span of less than 1 year up to 25 years show the importance of local soil conditions and warming-induced changes therein for future climatic impacts on ecosystem respiration.  

    • S. L. Maes
    • , J. Dietrich
    •  & E. Dorrepaal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An effort to map roads in the Asia-Pacific region finds that there are 3.0–6.6 times more roads than other sources suggest, and that unmapped ‘ghost roads’ are a major contributor to tropical forest loss.

    • Jayden E. Engert
    • , Mason J. Campbell
    •  & William F. Laurance

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Camera-trap images of 55 mammal species in 14 logging concessions in western equatorial Africa reveal greater animal encounter rates in FSC-certified than in non-certified forests, especially for large mammals and species of high conservation priority.

    • Joeri A. Zwerts
    • , E. H. M. Sterck
    •  & Marijke van Kuijk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial intelligence-based forecasting improves the reliability of predicting extreme flood events in ungauged watersheds, with predictions at five days lead time that are as good as current systems are for same-day predictions.

    • Grey Nearing
    • , Deborah Cohen
    •  & Yossi Matias

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-resolution vertical land motion and elevation datasets combined with projections of sea-level rise of 32 major US coastal cities shows that a considerable amount of land area, population, and properties are threatened by relative sea-level rise by 2050.

    • Leonard O. Ohenhen
    • , Manoochehr Shirzaei
    •  & Robert J. Nicholls

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Satellite imagery, vessel GPS data and deep-learning models are used to map industrial fishing vessel activities missing from public tracking systems and changes in offshore energy infrastructure in the world’s coastal waters during 2017–2021.

    • Fernando S. Paolo
    • , David Kroodsma
    •  & Patrick Halpin

  • Article |

    Physical analysis of processes universal to raised peatlands produces an equation that explains their morphology and carbon storage across biomes, from Alaska to New Zealand.

    • Alexander R. Cobb
    • , René Dommain
    •  & Charles F. Harvey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Results from 316 Bombus terrestris colonies at 106 agricultural sites across eight European countries find pesticides in bumble bee pollen to be associated with reduced colony performance, especially in areas of intensive agriculture.

    • Charlie C. Nicholson
    • , Jessica Knapp
    •  & Maj Rundlöf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Satellite data used to generate high-resolution maps across Southeast Asia show that rubber-related deforestation is at least twofold to threefold higher than suggested by estimates used for setting policy.

    • Yunxia Wang
    • , Peter M. Hollingsworth
    •  & Antje Ahrends

  • Article |

    Ground- and satellite-based air pollution data from 2000 to 2022 quantify the contribution of wildfire smoke to stagnation or reversal in PM2.5 concentration trends, showing that this contribution will grow as the climate continues to warm.

    • Marshall Burke
    • , Marissa L. Childs
    •  & Michael Wara

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The global population is increasingly exposed to daily landscape fire-sourced air pollution but there are socioeconomic disparities, with this pollution four times higher in low-income countries than in high-income countries during the period 2000–2019.

    • Rongbin Xu
    • , Tingting Ye
    •  & Shanshan Li

  • Article |

    Ground truthed thermal data from a new NASA satellite combined with experimental warming data from three continents in an empirical model suggests that tropical forests are closer to a high temperature threshold than previously thought.

    • Christopher E. Doughty
    • , Jenna M. Keany
    •  & Joshua B. Fisher

  • Article |

    The assembly and analysis of a 37-year satellite database covering almost 400 mining districts in 49 countries shows that a rise in river mineral mining has substantially increased riverine sediment load in tropical rivers worldwide.

    • Evan N. Dethier
    • , Miles Silman
    •  & David A. Lutz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A global assessment shows that the wildland–urban interface occurs on all continents, showing its broad-scale patterns and providing a basis for future research on dynamics and socioeconomic and biophysical processes.

    • Franz Schug
    • , Avi Bar-Massada
    •  & Volker C. Radeloff

  • Article |

    A global assessment of the mobility of 92 agricultural pesticides from points of application in major agricultural catchments downstream to rivers and oceans identifies flow pathways and pollution hotspots in which monitoring could improve risk mitigation.

    • Federico Maggi
    • , Fiona H. M. Tang
    •  & Francesco N. Tubiello

  • Article |

    Plastics were found in 77 out of 84 coral reefs surveyed in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, including in deeper reefs and remote and near-pristine reefs, such as in uninhabited central Pacific atolls.

    • Hudson T. Pinheiro
    • , Chancey MacDonald
    •  & Luiz A. Rocha

  • Article |

    Analysis of plastic debris found in surface waters shows that lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized regions, as well as those with elevated deposition areas, are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination.

    • Veronica Nava
    • , Sudeep Chandra
    •  & Barbara Leoni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We find that justice considerations constrain the integrated Earth system boundaries more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading, and our assessment provides a foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people.

    • Johan Rockström
    • , Joyeeta Gupta
    •  & Xin Zhang

  • Article |

    A new compatibilization strategy installs dynamic crosslinkers into several classes of binary, ternary and postconsumer immiscible polymer mixtures in situ, with the resulting compatibilized dynamic thermosets exhibiting intrinsic reprocessability and enhanced tensile strength and creep resistance.

    • Ryan W. Clarke
    • , Tobias Sandmeier
    •  & Eugene Y.-X. Chen

  • Article |

    A systematic census at 1,636 sites around Australia from 2008 to 2021 finds that more than 30% of shallow invertebrate species in cool latitudes exhibit a high extinction risk due to declining populations and oceanic barriers, but tropical coral species remain relatively stable.

    • Graham J. Edgar
    • , Rick D. Stuart-Smith
    •  & Amanda E. Bates

  • Article |

    Analysis of satellite-based data on recovering degraded and secondary forests in three tropical moist forest regions quantifies the amount of aboveground carbon accumulated, which counterbalanced one quarter of carbon emissions from old-growth forest loss between 1984 and 2018.

    • Viola H. A. Heinrich
    • , Christelle Vancutsem
    •  & Luiz E. O. C. Aragão

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Satellite observations reveal global increases in the extent and frequency of phytoplankton blooms between 2003 and 2020 and provide insights into the relationship between blooms, ocean circulation and sea surface temperature.

    • Yanhui Dai
    • , Shangbo Yang
    •  & Lian Feng

  • Article |

    A proposed optimal nitrogen rate strategy together with analysis of an extensive on-farm dataset shows that meeting national rice production targets in 2030 in China is possible while concurrently reducing nationwide nitrogen consumption.

    • Siyuan Cai
    • , Xu Zhao
    •  & Xiaoyuan Yan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An assessment of ice-dam failures in six mountain regions shows that extreme peak flows and volumes have declined sharply since 1900, and that ice-dam floods today originate at higher elevations and earlier in the year.

    • Georg Veh
    • , Natalie Lützow
    •  & Oliver Korup

  • Article |

    We reconstruct the spatial distribution and timing of wetland loss through conversion to seven human land uses between 1700 and 2020, elucidating the magnitude and land-use drivers of global wetland losses to improve assessments of wetland loss impacts.

    • Etienne Fluet-Chouinard
    • , Benjamin D. Stocker
    •  & Peter B. McIntyre

  • Article |

    Three alternative CO2 emission-mitigation pathways were analysed for the global plastics sector, covering their production to waste management. A circular bioeconomy strategy could achieve negative emissions in the long term, while at the same time allowing landfilling to be phased out and reducing resource consumption.

    • Paul Stegmann
    • , Vassilis Daioglou
    •  & Martin Junginger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Analysis of Landsat imagery from the past two decades allows quantification of the changes in salt marsh ecosystems, as well as associated carbon emissions resulting from net global losses.

    • Anthony D. Campbell
    • , Lola Fatoyinbo
    •  & David Lagomasino

  • Article |

    Simulations of historical and future periods of climate change showed that delayed mitigation to limit global warming might reduce the capacity of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and threaten climate stability and food security.

    • Siqing Xu
    • , Rong Wang
    •  & Renhe Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coupling advances in socioeconomic projections, climate models, damage functions and discounting methods yields an estimate of the social cost of carbon of US$185 per tonne of CO2—triple the widely used value published by the US government.

    • Kevin Rennert
    • , Frank Errickson
    •  & David Anthoff

  • Article |

    A dynamic optimization approach using plant species data from 458 forest ecoregions suggests a strategy for when and where to conserve forests globally over the next 50 years to maximize the conservation of plant biodiversity.

    • Ian H. Luby
    • , Steve J. Miller
    •  & Stephen Polasky

  • Article |

    An analysis of satellite observations and climate data shows that night-time fire intensity has increased over the past two decades owing to hotter and drier nights under anthropogenic climate change.

    • Jennifer K. Balch
    • , John T. Abatzoglou
    •  & A. Park Williams

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In a 15-year whole-ecosystem, single-factor experiment, stopping experimental mercury loading results in rapid decreases in methylmercury contamination of fish populations and almost complete recovery within the timeframe of the study.

    • Paul J. Blanchfield
    • , John W. M. Rudd
    •  & Michael T. Tate

  • Article |

    A new framework is proposed for assessing the risks of the atmospheric transformation products of commercial chemicals, combining laboratory and field experiments, advanced techniques for screening suspect chemicals, and in silico modelling.

    • Qifan Liu
    • , Li Li
    •  & John Liggio

  • Article |

    A global inventory of utility-scale solar photovoltaic generating units, produced by combining remote sensing imagery with machine learning, has identified 68,661 facilities — an increase of over 400% on previously available asset-level data —  the majority of which were sited on cropland.

    • L. Kruitwagen
    • , K. T. Story
    •  & C. Hepburn

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