Environmental social sciences articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charging costs are important for the diffusion of electric vehicles as required to decarbonize transport. Here, the authors show large variance of electrical vehicle charging costs across 30 European countries and charging options, suggesting different policy options to reduce charging costs.

    • Lukas Lanz
    • , Bessie Noll
    •  & Bjarne Steffen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wood used in construction stores carbon and reduces the emissions from steel and cement production. Transformation to timber cities while protecting forest and biodiversity is possible without significant increase in competition for land.

    • Abhijeet Mishra
    • , Florian Humpenöder
    •  & Alexander Popp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A new study characterizes adaptation in mitigation pathways, and shows that climate adaptation can lead to higher energy demand, power system costs and carbon prices, with mitigation’s benefits compensating decarbonization costs.

    • Francesco Pietro Colelli
    • , Johannes Emmerling
    •  & Enrica De Cian

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most of the intensive human activities usually occur in lowlands. Here the authors report that human activity expansions also were widely distributed in Asian highlands in the 21st century and held dual effects, which provides new insights for regional human activity expansions.

    • Chao Yang
    • , Huizeng Liu
    •  & Guofeng Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rechargeable Li-ion batteries play a key role in the energy transition towards clean energy. It is challenging for end users to ensure that Li comes from environmentally and responsible sources. Here the authors show that Li isotope ‘fingerprints’ are a useful tool for determining the origin of Li in battery.

    • Anne-Marie Desaulty
    • , Daniel Monfort Climent
    •  & Catherine Guerrot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The 2020 – 2021 eruption of La Soufrière volcano transitioned from an effusive to explosive eruption style. Here the authors show that input from multiple monitoring datasets and an evolving conceptual model were key to anticipating and responding to the eruptive transition at the La Soufrière volcano, St. Vincent, in a resource-constrained setting.

    • E. P. Joseph
    • , M. Camejo-Harry
    •  & R. S. J. Sparks

  • Article
    | Open Access

    New study finds geographical mismatch in cross-regional ranking between cost and benefit of carbon mitigation, as well as spatial mismatch between relative suitability of mitigation and mitigation ambition of emitters.

    • Yu Liu
    • , Mingxi Du
    •  & Klaus Hubacek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using shallow geothermal energy systems to recycle the heat accumulating in the subsurface due to climate change and urbanization is a feasible, sustainable, and opportunistic alternative to conventional space heating in the face of climate change

    • Susanne A. Benz
    • , Kathrin Menberg
    •  & Barret L. Kurylyk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The relationship between new greenspaces and gentrification is an important one for urbanization. Here the authors show a positive relationship for at least one decade between greening in the 1990s–2000s and gentrification that occurred between 2000–2016 in 17 of 28 studied cities in North America and Europe.

    • Isabelle Anguelovski
    • , James J. T. Connolly
    •  & Joaquin Martinez Minaya

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Flooding is a pervasive natural hazard, with new research demonstrating that more than one in five people around the world live in areas directly exposed to 1-in-100 year flood risk. Exposure to such flood risk is particularly concentrated amongst lower income households worldwide.

    • Thomas K. J. McDermott

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An ethically-based method for allocating climate change mitigation effort among subsidiaries, applicable worldwide, is proposed. Applied to the EU Green Deal, this results in a wider range of targets than the Commission’s proposal of 2021.

    • Karl W. Steininger
    • , Keith Williges
    •  & Keywan Riahi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A horizon scan was used to explore possible impacts of robotics and automated systems on achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Positive effects are likely. Iterative regulatory processes and continued dialogue could help avoid environmental damages and increases in inequality.

    • Solène Guenat
    • , Phil Purnell
    •  & Martin Dallimer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using optimization models with climate, crop & economic data, the authors show that India can stop groundwater depletion, reduce energy use and meet food/nutrition targets by changing where it sources crops for its food procurement and distribution system.

    • Naresh Devineni
    • , Shama Perveen
    •  & Upmanu Lall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors explore the effects of disasters on adaptation actions in 549 cities, finding that the effects of disaster frequency and severity are modest and depend on action type, population size, and adaptive capacity.

    • Daniel Nohrstedt
    • , Jacob Hileman
    •  & Charles F. Parker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A study of how the Greater London electric vehicle charging network is affected by flooding reveals disproportionate impacts on already-stressed parts of the network, peaking as far as over 10 km away from the flooded regions.

    • Gururaghav Raman
    • , Gurupraanesh Raman
    •  & Jimmy Chih-Hsien Peng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study indicates that approximately 5.8 TW of wind and solar photovoltaic capacity would be required to achieve carbon neutrality in China’s power system by 2050. The electricity supply costs would increase by 19.9% or 9.6 CNY¢/kWh.

    • Zhenyu Zhuo
    • , Ershun Du
    •  & Chongqing Kang

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Miscalculating the volumes of water withdrawn for irrigation, the largest consumer of freshwater in the world, jeopardizes sustainable water management. Hydrological models quantify water withdrawals, but their estimates are unduly precise. Model imperfections need to be appreciated to avoid policy misjudgements.

    • Arnald Puy
    • , Razi Sheikholeslami
    •  & Andrea Saltelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fuel output of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol facilities may be increased by over 40% without using additional land if production is combined with synthetic fuel processes. This amounts to 100TWh of fuel, sparing 27,000 km2 of land.

    • Luis Ramirez Camargo
    • , Gabriel Castro
    •  & Johannes Schmidt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nighttime lights from satellite are combined with a map of human settlements, showing that 19% of these areas, mainly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, have no detectable artificial light. These data were then used in models to predict well-being.

    • Ian McCallum
    • , Christopher Conrad Maximillian Kyba
    •  & Steffen Fritz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    ‘Commercial fisheries have decimated keystone species, including oysters in the past 200 years. Here, the authors examine how Indigenous oyster harvest in North America and Australia was managed across 10,000 years, advocating for effective future stewardship of oyster reefs by centering Indigenous peoples.’

    • Leslie Reeder-Myers
    • , Todd J. Braje
    •  & Torben C. Rick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ultrathin two-dimensional metal oxyhalides show excellent photocatalytic properties with unique electronic and interfacial structures. Here, the authors develop a top-down desalination strategy to engineer ultrathin bimetallic two-dimensional material for photocatalytic atmospheric carbon dioxide reduction.

    • Xuezhen Feng
    • , Renji Zheng
    •  & Hong Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reversible Power-to-Gas systems can convert electricity to hydrogen at times of ample and inexpensive power supply and operate in reverse to deliver electricity during times when power is relatively scarce. Here, the authors show that such systems can already be economically viable relative to current hydrogen prices in the context of the German and Texas electricity markets.

    • Gunther Glenk
    •  & Stefan Reichelstein

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Taking action to reduce risks of labor abuse and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the fishing sector is hindered by a lack of spatially explicit data and an understanding of different drivers of risks. Here the authors combine expert assessments with satellite information to map and quantify risks of labor abuse and IUU fishing at port, at sea and associated with transshipment globally.

    • Elizabeth R. Selig
    • , Shinnosuke Nakayama
    •  & Jessica L. Decker Sparks

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about the consequences of prenatal exposure to wildfire smoke on biobehavioural outcomes. Here, the authors show that infant rhesus monkeys exposed early in gestation to wildfire smoke from the 2018 Camp Fire in California show more inflammation, blunted cortisol and altered behaviour outcomes compared to non-exposed animals.

    • John P. Capitanio
    • , Laura A. Del Rosso
    •  & Bill L. Lasley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Population growth in the coming decades will lead to increasing land conversion to urban areas. Here, the authors use spatially explicit projections of global urban expansion to analyze its effects on habitat changes, and terrestrial mammals, birds and amphibians under the main shared socioeconomic pathways.

    • Guangdong Li
    • , Chuanglin Fang
    •  & Xiaoping Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A new study shows that tropical silvopasture systems can provide significant cooling services for local communities, and identifies where these silvopasture systems can most effectively counteract global climate change to help communities adapt to warming.

    • Lucas R. Vargas Zeppetello
    • , Susan C. Cook-Patton
    •  & Yuta J. Masuda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vegetation changes have been suggested as a climate mitigation option, but the numerous feedbacks between vegetation and climate are not well understood. Here, the authors show that greening leads to surface cooling in many areas, but the size of the effect depends on the background climate.

    • Ramdane Alkama
    • , Giovanni Forzieri
    •  & Alessandro Cescatti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will come into force in January 2022. Here the authors quantify ex ante economic and environmental effects following RCEP tariff reductions.

    • Kailan Tian
    • , Yu Zhang
    •  & Shouyang Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Net energy metrics reveal disparities in United States household energy burdens. Here the authors find that at least five million households are excluded from current accounting methods, with race, education, and housing tenure accounting for large differences in energy burden.

    • Eric Scheier
    •  & Noah Kittner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Critically lists tend to ignore the fact that most metals are largely used in alloy form. Here the authors analyze four key metrics and show that six critical metals can be singled out for enhanced concern – Dy, Sm, V, Nb, Te, and Ga.

    • T. E. Graedel
    • , Barbara K. Reck
    •  & Alessio Miatto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bioenergy crops has been proposed as a climate mitigation measure, but how the biophysical effects of large-scale cultivation would influence the climate is not well known. Here, the authors use models to show that large-scale cultivation could cool the global land by 0.03 to 0.08 °C.

    • Jingmeng Wang
    • , Wei Li
    •  & Olivier Boucher

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