Volume 4 Issue 12, December 2021

China’s food demand is projected to grow and reshape its production and trade relations. A new study evaluates the consequent challenges for agricultural land, greenhouse gas emissions, fertilizer and irrigation water use in China and its trading partners.

Integrated assessment models are widely used to assess climate change mitigation strategies. Comparing scenarios from several integrated assessment models, a study now highlights the benefits and trade-offs of near-term mitigation to reduce mitigation challenges in the longer term.

Our understanding of the impacts of oil spills highlights the urgency of preventing them. A new study considers public health and other effects of an oil spill from an abandoned Red Sea tanker.

Personal carbon allowances (PCAs) could support climate mitigation efforts but would need to be carefully designed to avoid impacts on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This Perspective discusses why the time is ripe for reconsidering PCAs and provides a set of SDG-based design principles for the future adoption of PCAs.

A growing set of chemicals is emitted into the environment, making the protection of drinking water supplies challenging. This Perspective discusses a more holistic approach to the evaluation of drinking water quality that focuses on complex mixtures instead of a small set of regulated, well-known chemicals.

Perovskite solar cells are an emerging energy technology but their sustainability is jeopardized by the presence of Pb. Here the authors introduce on-device layers that could capture over 99.9% of leaked Pb.

Meeting China’s growing demand for food, especially for livestock products, will have huge environmental impacts domestically and globally. This study finds large increases in land, water, fertilizer and greenhouse gas emissions that vary based on openness of trade.

Delaying climate mitigation requires large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in the second half of this century, with possible adverse effects. Under scenarios with no dependence on CDR technologies, this study examines the short- and long-term implications of climate mitigation for land-use and food systems.

The world’s coasts are increasingly covered with built structures, such as piers and seawalls. This study finds that coastal infrastructure has replaced more than half of the coastline associated with 30 urban centres and forecasts future hotspots using New Zealand as a case study.

Ecosystems that provide fresh water for cities also impact sediment flows, flood mitigation and hydropower provision. This Article looks at over 300 cities globally to gauge the interactions of natural ecosystems with built infrastructure.

China’s coasts have become more populous and urbanized. This study finds a rebound in the area of coastal wetlands, reflecting recent conservation and restoration, with large losses between 1984 and 2011 followed by increases in saltmarsh area and stabilization of tidal flats.

The possibility of a huge oil spill off the coast of Yemen, already in crisis, is increasingly likely. This study projects the likely spill extent and impacts to public health, food, water and air.

Access to green space has been a critical, and contentious, issue for neighbourhood inequality and health outcomes. This Analysis looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic interacts with availability of nature for urban residents.