Environmental impact articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing rice yield while improving resource use efficiency is of great importance. This study examines cropping systems globally to highlight areas where rice production can be improved by prioritizing R&D strategies.

    • Shen Yuan
    • , Bruce A. Linquist
    •  & Patricio Grassini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deforestation and drainage have made Indonesian peatlands susceptible to burning. Here the authors find that Indonesia’s 2015 fires resulted in economic losses totaling US$28 billion, while the area burned and emissions released could have been significantly reduced had restoration been completed.

    • L. Kiely
    • , D. V. Spracklen
    •  & H. A. Adrianto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The degree to which wildfire activity in Australia is affected by climate change is not well quantified. Here, the authors show that the frequency of forest fires and the area burned have increased significantly over recent decades, mainly due to an increase in dangerous fire weather conditions through warmer temperature and circulation changes.

    • Josep G. Canadell
    • , C. P. (Mick) Meyer
    •  & Vanessa Haverd

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global trade of solar photovoltaic (PV) products has an important role to play in sustainable mitigation to climate change. Highlighting global PV product trade, this study explores the impeding effect of tariff and non-tariff barriers on global PV product trade and carbon emissions reductions.

    • Mudan Wang
    • , Xianqiang Mao
    •  & Eric Zusman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Air pollution has been linked to neurodegenerative disease. Here the authors carried out a population-based cohort study to investigate the association between long-term exposure to PM2.5, NO2, and warm-season O3 on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease incidence in the United States.

    • Liuhua Shi
    • , Kyle Steenland
    •  & Joel Schwartz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Brazil is a wildfire-prone region, and few studies have investigated the health impacts of wildfire exposure. Here, the authors show that wildfire waves are associated with an increase of 23% in respiratory hospital admissions and an increase of 21% in circulatory hospital admissions in Brazil.

    • Weeberb J. Requia
    • , Heresh Amini
    •  & Joel D. Schwartz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The implications of delaying carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are poorly understood. Here the authors highlight the potential extra costs and reduced removal potential of delayed CDR action, with a special focus on direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (DACCS and BECCS).

    • Ángel Galán-Martín
    • , Daniel Vázquez
    •  & Gonzalo Guillén-Gosálbez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ammonia emissions from agricultural sources can cause severe health impacts. Here, the authors show that about 25% of global agricultural ammonia emissions in 2012 were related to international exported goods and caused 61 thousand PM2.5 related premature deaths, which points out large ammonia mitigation potential in international trade.

    • Rong Ma
    • , Ke Li
    •  & Jing Meng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Flash droughts can have devastating impacts but are notoriously difficult to predict. This study identifies global hotspots of flash drought, driven by evaporative demand and precipitation deficits across varying geographic regions and crop-type, providing a framework for flash drought prediction.

    • Jordan I. Christian
    • , Jeffrey B. Basara
    •  & Robb M. Randall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How structurally complex interfaces mediate bubble bursting might significantly impact environmental and industrial processes. Here, authors investigate the bubble-bursting jets dynamics of oil-covered aqueous surface and show how these can also disperse insoluble organic contaminants.

    • Bingqiang Ji
    • , Zhengyu Yang
    •  & Jie Feng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The emplacement of the Karoo LIP occurred synchronously with the Toarcian crisis, which is characterized by negative carbon isotope excursions. Here the authors use carbon cycle modelling to show that thermogenic carbon released during LIP emplacement represents a plausible source for the negative excursions.

    • Thea H. Heimdal
    • , Yves Goddéris
    •  & Henrik H. Svensen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Satellite-derived chlorophyll data and Google Earth Engine (GEE) are used to introduce the first global map of coastal eutrophication potential as a GEE app. The prospects of the app being used as a global framework for eutrophication screening/monitoring are discussed.

    • Elígio de Raús Maúre
    • , Genki Terauchi
    •  & Michael DeWitt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Building construction causes large material-related emissions which present a serious decarbonization challenge. Here, the authors show that the building material sector could halve emissions by increasing efficiency until 2060 but even then its emissions would be twice as high as needed to meet the 1.5 °C target.

    • Xiaoyang Zhong
    • , Mingming Hu
    •  & Paul Behrens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences the weather around the world and, therefore, has strong impacts on society. Here, the authors show that ENSO is associated with child nutrition in many countries, with warmer El Niño conditions leading to more child undernutrition in large parts of the developing world.

    • Jesse K. Anttila-Hughes
    • , Amir S. Jina
    •  & Gordon C. McCord

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rivers are increasingly plagued by “syndromes”, i.e. salinization, mineralization, desalinization, acidification, alkalization, hardening and softening. A global look at river biogeochemistry reveals dramatically increased flux estimates and anthropogenic drivers of syndromes.

    • Jiang Wu
    • , Nan Xu
    •  & Jinren Ni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perovskite photovoltaics has become more competitive against silicon counterpart in reducing cost of solar energy, yet the management of toxic lead hampers it application. Here, the authors propose a cost-effective environmental-friendly approach to recycle lead and transparent conductors.

    • Bo Chen
    • , Chengbin Fei
    •  & Jinsong Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Accurate seasonal forecasts of sea ice are highly valuable, particularly in the context of sea ice loss due to global warming. A new machine learning tool for sea ice forecasting offers a substantial increase in accuracy over current physics-based dynamical model predictions.

    • Tom R. Andersson
    • , J. Scott Hosking
    •  & Emily Shuckburgh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Methane emissions from oil and gas systems are underestimated in official inventories. Here the authors synthesize thousands of field measurements and develop an inventory-based model for a better understanding of why this underestimation exists and how it can be fixed.

    • Jeffrey S. Rutherford
    • , Evan D. Sherwin
    •  & Adam R. Brandt

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Outdoor air pollution contributes to millions of deaths worldwide yet air pollution has differential exposures across racial/ethnic groups and socioeconomic status. While green infrastructure has the potential to decrease air pollution and provide other benefits to human health, vegetation alone cannot resolve health disparities related to air pollution injustice. We discuss how unequal access to green infrastructure can limit air quality improvements for marginalized communities and provide strategies to move forward.

    • Viniece Jennings
    • , Colleen E. Reid
    •  & Christina H. Fuller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The global water demands of irrigated agriculture are estimated through country surveys or through hydrological models, but both approaches are taxing. Here, the authors show that they can simply be estimated as a function of irrigated areas.

    • Arnald Puy
    • , Emanuele Borgonovo
    •  & Andrea Saltelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lead toxicity poses a big hurdle for the commercialization of perovskite optoelectronics, hence reducing the environmental impact holds the answer for its future application. To tackle this challenge, the authors utilize germanium to reduce the lead content, enabling highly luminescent eco-friendly compound for LEDs.

    • Dexin Yang
    • , Guoling Zhang
    •  & Dawei Di

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Freshwater salinisation is a growing water quality problem, but impacts and drivers across regional to global scales have been lacking. A new assessment of inter-regional freshwater salinisation demonstrates the importance of irrigation as a driver of salinisation.

    • Josefin Thorslund
    • , Marc F. P. Bierkens
    •  & Michelle T. H. van Vliet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conserving mangrove biodiversity has numerous co-benefits, including climate change-mitigation. Here the authors demonstrate that blue carbon storage in mangroves can be best sustained by combining site-specific dominant species with other species with contrasting functional traits.

    • Md Mizanur Rahman
    • , Martin Zimmer
    •  & Ming Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Afforestation is an important greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation strategy but the efficacy of commercial (harvested) forestry is disputed. Here the authors apply dynamic life cycle assessment to show that new commercial conifer forests can achieve up to 269% more GHG mitigation than semi-natural forests, over 100 years.

    • Eilidh J. Forster
    • , John R. Healey
    •  & David Styles

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aviation contributes to climate change and ways to reduce its emissions are widely debated. Here, the authors assess the effects of technology improvements and the use of sustainable aviation fuels and find that even when these are considered aviation is unlikely to meet emissions goals in line with the Paris Agreement.

    • Volker Grewe
    • , Arvind Gangoli Rao
    •  & Katrin Dahlmann

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Whether or not a city achieves absolute sustainability is difficult to assess with existing frameworks. Here the authors, in a review, show that a further integration of consumption-based accounting and benchmarking is necessary to aid the monitoring and assessment of Sustainable Development Goals in cities.

    • Thomas Wiedmann
    •  & Cameron Allen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Advanced copper supply chain modeling shows China’s new waste trade policy may increase pollution, while limiting other low-value imports reverses this trend. Here the authors show that recycling is vulnerable to supply chain shocks, requiring investment during recoveries to promote a circular economy.

    • John Ryter
    • , Xinkai Fu
    •  & Elsa A. Olivetti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is one of the most important environmental health risk factors in many regions. Here, the authors present an assessment of PM2.5 emission sources and the related health impacts across global to sub-national scales and find that over 1 million deaths were avoidable in 2017 by eliminating PM2.5 mass associated with fossil fuel combustion emissions.

    • Erin E. McDuffie
    • , Randall V. Martin
    •  & Michael Brauer

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Water scarcity is a rapidly spreading global challenge but water purification technologies are often not sustainable. Here, the authors review the research on water purification technologies based on protein nanofibrils as a green and affordable solution to alleviate a water crisis.

    • Mohammad Peydayesh
    •  & Raffaele Mezzenga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Open fires can increase heavy exposure to hazardous particulate matters, and thus harm human health, particularly among the vulnerable individuals, such as pregnant women. Here, the authors show an association between maternal exposure to fire smoke and increased risk of pregnancy loss in South Asia.

    • Tao Xue
    • , Guannan Geng
    •  & Tong Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individual exposure to heat is associated with adverse health and economic outcomes. Here, the authors show that people of color and people living in poverty bear a disproportionate burden of urban heat exposure in almost all major cities in the continental United States.

    • Angel Hsu
    • , Glenn Sheriff
    •  & Diego Manya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mercury is a neurotoxin and pollutant with enhanced emissions from anthropogenic activities. Here, the authors develop a global emissions, transport, and human risk model and find substantial future losses in revenue and public health if emission reductions proposed by the Minamata Convention are delayed.

    • Yanxu Zhang
    • , Zhengcheng Song
    •  & Ping Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Filling of dams, when coinciding with droughts, can lead to severe downstream hydrology and ecology problems. The authors hence here provide a multisectoral perspective, using a dam in Ethiopia as an example, to develop adaptive filling solutions that support decision making, favourable filling timing and an effective filling policy.

    • Marta Zaniolo
    • , Matteo Giuliani
    •  & Andrea Castelletti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantifying land use change is critical in tackling global challenges related to food, climate and biodiversity. Here the authors show that land use change has affected 32 % of the global land area in six decades (1960- 2019) by combining multiple open datasets to create the HIstoric Land Dynamics Assessment +.

    • Karina Winkler
    • , Richard Fuchs
    •  & Martin Herold

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deforestation in the Amazon region has suggested to influence precipitation in a non-linear way. Here, the authors show that forest loss is associated with decreasing precipitation after a scale-dependent threshold is crossed, which can cause stress on agriculture if deforestation is expanded.

    • Argemiro Teixeira Leite-Filho
    • , Britaldo Silveira Soares-Filho
    •  & Jan Börner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The assessment of soil sustainability in prehistoric times requires comparing millennium-scale erosion rates with geological background rates. Here, the authors apply in situ cosmogenic 14C, 10Be, and 26Al to reveal rapid soil erosion on the Andean Altiplano in response to Late Holocene climate change and the onset of agropastoralism.

    • Kristina Hippe
    • , John D. Jansen
    •  & David Lundbek Egholm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors investigate the impacts of wildfires on fluvial networks in the western US. They find that wildfires directly impacted ~6% of the total stream length between 1984 and 2014. When longitudinal propagation was included, they estimate that wildfires affected ~11% of the total stream length.

    • Grady Ball
    • , Peter Regier
    •  & David Van Horn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The COVID-19 response has led to unparalleled changes in the functioning of human society, from travel restrictions to changes in consumption. Here the authors use high resolution satellite data to track the global reduction in marine traffic during the pandemic, and more recent hints of recovery to pre-lockdown levels.

    • David March
    • , Kristian Metcalfe
    •  & Brendan J. Godley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microplastic pollution is a major threat to marine food webs, but the wider ranging impacts on global ocean biogeochemistry are poorly understood. Here the authors use an Earth system model to determine that zooplankton grazing on microplastics could exacerbate trends in ocean oxygen loss.

    • K. Kvale
    • , A. E. F. Prowe
    •  & A. Oschlies

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The global agrarian transition is characterized by a rise in large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs), whose energy impacts are unknown. Here, the authors assess how LSLAs change land use, finding that they necessitate greater investment in energy to meet demands, and greater greenhouse gas emissions.

    • Lorenzo Rosa
    • , Maria Cristina Rulli
    •  & Paolo D’Odorico

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study investigates the relation between El Nino and landslide impacts. The authors show how El Nino and La Nina can cause swings in exposure of population to landslides that are as large as those due to rainy-season/dry-season variability in key locations, particularly South America.

    • Robert Emberson
    • , Dalia Kirschbaum
    •  & Thomas Stanley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superfund sites have hazardous wastes that could affect the health of those who live near them, but this has not been assessed across the USA. Here the authors find that proximity to superfund sites decreases life expectancy and is further exacerbated by sociodemographic and climate change factors.

    • Amin Kiaghadi
    • , Hanadi S. Rifai
    •  & Clint N. Dawson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large fissure eruptions can cause air pollution events when the volcanic plume returns to the same area after the initial advisory has been lifted. Here, the authors show that these events had a significant impact on health care usage in Iceland, and the impact was exacerbated when advisories were not issued successfully.

    • Hanne Krage Carlsen
    • , Evgenia Ilyinskaya
    •  & Thorolfur Gudnason

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