Environmental impact articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is challenging to produce biomass FG continuously due to the lack of an integrated device. Here, we create an integrated automatic system with energy requirement-oriented allocation to achieve continuous biomass FG production with a much lower carbon footprint.

    • Xiangdong Zhu
    • , Litao Lin
    •  & Yong-Guan Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The global energy and carbon footprint of irrigation remain uncertain. Here, the authors show that energy consumption and carbon emissions from irrigation are primarily driven by groundwater pumping and are significant in major agricultural nations.”

    • Jingxiu Qin
    • , Weili Duan
    •  & Lorenzo Rosa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The effectiveness of community-based land protection compared to traditional top-down protection is debated. Here, the authors show that both community-managed forests and traditional protected areas in Madagascar experienced deforestation during a political crisis but the former were especially vulnerable in the post-crisis period.

    • Rachel A. Neugarten
    • , Ranaivo A. Rasolofoson
    •  & Amanda D. Rodewald

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Restoring tree cover is a prominent climate solution but can cause global warming due to changes in albedo. This paper maps albedo and carbon changes from restoring tree cover to highlight where the greatest net climate benefits can be achieved.

    • Natalia Hasler
    • , Christopher A. Williams
    •  & Susan C. Cook-Patton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study introduces a novel framework for generating high-resolution, in-situ estimates of agricultural evapotranspiration (ET) using satellite-based ET data combined with machine learning. This approach is leveraged to assess the water-saving potential of various management strategies and in calculating irrigation efficiency across California’s Central Valley.

    • Anna Boser
    • , Kelly Caylor
    •  & Tamma Carleton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study shows that urban irrigation is capable of achieving the environmental co-benefit of heat mitigation and carbon neutrality and has the potential to counteract the climate–carbon feedback loop in the U.S. urban environment.

    • Peiyuan Li
    • , Zhi-Hua Wang
    •  & Chenghao Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study demonstrates how land-based carbon removals and the market-mediated responses are sensitive to mitigation policy strength and scope, illustrating that, despite trade-offs, both forestation and BECCS are integral to cost-effective 2 °C pathways.

    • Xin Zhao
    • , Bryan K. Mignone
    •  & Haewon C. McJeon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    China’s use of coal is complex to establish a clean and low-carbon transition for the country. With an uncertainty assessment framework, this study displays the risks of missing opportunities in obtaining cumulative positive net benefits and identifying an optimal transition strategy.

    • Xizhe Yan
    • , Dan Tong
    •  & Yu Lei

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Climate change and plastic pollution are interconnected global challenges. Rising temperatures and moisture alter plastic characteristics, contributing to waste, microplastic generation, and release of hazardous substances. Urgent attention is essential to comprehend and address these climate-driven effects and their consequences.

    • Xin-Feng Wei
    • , Wei Yang
    •  & Mikael S. Hedenqvist

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional blue denim dyeing has both environmental and health-related consequences. Here, Bidart et al. use enzyme engineering to develop a viable method for the bulk production of indican and demonstrate dying processes which could significantly reduce the negative consequences of this billion-dollar industry.

    • Gonzalo Nahuel Bidart
    • , David Teze
    •  & Ditte Hededam Welner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Herbicides used in terrestrial environments pollute coastal ecosystems. Here, the authors analyse the presence of 32 herbicides at 661 bays and gulfs worldwide from 1990 to 2022, showing how under current herbicide stress, phytoplankton primary productivity was inhibited by more than 5% at 25%.

    • Liqiang Yang
    • , Xiaotong He
    •  & Yongyu Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is elusive to manufacture room temperature phosphorescent (RTP) materials through effective and ambient processing approaches. Here the authors report the production of photocured RTP materials using lignosulfonate to act as RTP chromophore and photoinitiator, achieving easy preparation, low cost and good performance.

    • Hongda Guo
    • , Mengnan Cao
    •  & Zhijun Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Over 13 years, coastal Louisiana’s wetlands have been endangered by a sea-level rise rate comparable to what is expected later this century. While the rate may not persist over the next few decades, this natural experiment indicates a 75% drowning of these wetlands by 2070 under current carbon emissions.

    • Guandong Li
    • , Torbjörn E. Törnqvist
    •  & Sönke Dangendorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using a lake sediment core taken from the European Alps and combining a source-sink approach with isotope geochemistry, it has been established that the effects of human activities have outweighed those of climate on erosion for more than 3800 years.

    • William Rapuc
    • , Charline Giguet-Covex
    •  & Fabien Arnaud

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional desalination processes generate clean water and reject brine to sea, which is harmful to the aquatic life. Here, the authors propose a low- cost scalable and foldable mangrove-mimetic device for solar thermal distillation and passive salt collection without brine discharge.

    • Mohamed A. Abdelsalam
    • , Muhammad Sajjad
    •  & TieJun Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tree mortality due to climate change and other disturbances is on the rise. Here, the authors use high-resolution remote sensing data, ground observations and deep learning to quantify individual dead trees and potential drivers across California in the year 2020, encompassing 91.4 million dead trees.

    • Yan Cheng
    • , Stefan Oehmcke
    •  & Stéphanie Horion

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Towards optimizing the conjunctive operation of surface and groundwater resources in arid and semi-arid regions, here the authors propose a hybrid method involving moth-swarm and symbiotic organism search algorithms and artificial neural networks and demonstrate it for the HalīlRood basin.

    • Saeid Akbarifard
    • , Mohamad Reza Madadi
    •  & Mohammad Zounemat-Kermani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In a first global analysis, researchers find that sandy shores are severely squeezed between human infrastructure and the rising sea, as on average, the first road or building is currently situated at just 390 meters distance from the shoreline.

    • Eva M. Lansu
    • , Valérie C. Reijers
    •  & Tjisse van der Heide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The growth in global milk demand has been accompanied by an increase in waste milk disposal. Here, the authors transform waste milk through humification and incorporate the product into attapulgite creating a nano-fertiliser that benefits for plants growing in pots.

    • Yanping Zhu
    • , Yuxuan Cao
    •  & Dongqing Cai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Zuiderveen and colleagues find that emerging bio-based products have on average 45% lower greenhouse gas life cycle emissions compared to their fossil counterparts, yet, there is a large variation between individual bio-based products with none of them reaching netzero emissions.

    • Emma A. R. Zuiderveen
    • , Koen J. J. Kuipers
    •  & Mark A. J. Huijbregts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest restoration in LMICs can contribute to global C mitigation targets. Here, the authors assess the economic feasibility of forest restoration methods in Panama, i.e. natural regeneration, native species plantings, and enrichment planting, showing that not all methods are economically viable.

    • Katherine Sinacore
    • , Edwin H. García
    •  & Jefferson S. Hall

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Carcinogenic heavy metals are an underappreciated public health concern from wildfire. Fire severity, geology, and ecosystem type influence landscape-scale production of hexavalent chromium, concentrated in wind-dispersible particles.

    • Alandra Marie Lopez
    • , Juan Lezama Pacheco
    •  & Scott Fendorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study introduce the Global Biojet Fuel Sustainability Index, a holistic 25-indicator sustainability index encompassing the four domains of energy-water-food nexus and governance, to measure the potential impact of RJF productions on 154 countries/territories through the oil-to-jet, alcohol-to-jet and gas-to-jet conversion methods.

    • Cheng Tung Chong
    •  & Jo-Han Ng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forecasting ecology can support proactive decision-making in the face of uncertain environmental conditions. Using case studies on whale entanglement and sea turtle bycatch, this study showcases the capacity for existing management tools to transition to a forecast configuration and provide skilful forecasts up to 12 months in advance.

    • Stephanie Brodie
    • , Mercedes Pozo Buil
    •  & Michael G. Jacox

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microplastic uptake by animals is often assumed to reflect the level of contamination in the environment. Here, the authors compile a global inventory of individual microplastic body burden in benthic marine invertebrates and find that feeding mode and geographic location are more important predictors than environmental microplastic loading.

    • Adam Porter
    • , Jasmin A. Godbold
    •  & Tamara S. Galloway

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ronco and colleagues analyze disaster-induced movements in the presence of floods, storms, and landslides during 2016–2021, providing empirical evidence that differential vulnerability exists and quantifying its extent. They achieve this by employing explainable machine learning techniques to model and understand internal displacement flows and patterns from observational data.

    • Michele Ronco
    • , José María Tárraga
    •  & Gustau Camps-Valls

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Domoic acid, a red tide algal toxin, enhances nitrification, dissimilates nitrate reduction to ammonification in sediments, while concurrently inhibiting denitrification, anammox, and nitrogen fixation.

    • Zelong Li
    • , Jing Wang
    •  & Jingfeng Fan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While accounting for intrinsic differences between short- and long-lived greenhouse gases, solely relying on soil carbon sequestration in grasslands to offset warming effect of emissions from current ruminant systems is not feasible

    • Yue Wang
    • , Imke J. M. de Boer
    •  & Corina E. van Middelaar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The deep ocean is increasingly subjected to human-induced environmental change, but little is known about species-specific responses to stressors, including those from deep sea mining. This study shows that elevated temperatures and simulated sediment plumes cause physiological stress in a cosmopolitan deep-sea jellyfish, confirming the detrimental impact of seabed mining.

    • Vanessa I. Stenvers
    • , Helena Hauss
    •  & Henk-Jan T. Hoving

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Englander and Costello note that African coastal waters are among the world’s most biologically rich, but African countries earn much less than their peers from selling access to foreign fishers. They find forming a “fish cartel" would increase African fish biomass by 16% and profits by 23%.

    • Gabriel Englander
    •  & Christopher Costello

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