Nature Sustainability

Journal: Nature Sustainability

Abbreviation

Nat Sustain

Publisher

Nature

ISSN

2398-9629

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Publications1 - 10 of 45

Improving biodiversity protection through artificial intelligence
Silvestro, Daniele; Goria, Stefano; Sterner, Thomas; et al. (2022)
Nature Sustainability
Over a million species face extinction, highlighting the urgent need for conservation policies that maximize the protection of biodiversity to sustain its manifold contributions to people’s lives. Here we present a novel framework for spatial conservation prioritization based on reinforcement learning that consistently outperforms available state-of-the-art software using simulated and empirical data. Our methodology, conservation area prioritization through artificial intelligence (CAPTAIN), quantifies the trade-off between the costs and benefits of area and biodiversity protection, allowing the exploration of multiple biodiversity metrics. Under a limited budget, our model protects significantly more species from extinction than areas selected randomly or naively (such as based on species richness). CAPTAIN achieves substantially better solutions with empirical data than alternative software, meeting conservation targets more reliably and generating more interpretable prioritization maps. Regular biodiversity monitoring, even with a degree of inaccuracy characteristic of citizen science surveys, further improves biodiversity outcomes. Artificial intelligence holds great promise for improving the conservation and sustainable use of biological and ecosystem values in a rapidly changing and resource-limited world.
Improved trade-offs of hydropower and sand connectivity by strategic dam planning in the Mekong
Schmitt, Rafael J.P.; Bizzi, Simone; Castelletti, Andrea; et al. (2018)
Nature Sustainability
Livestock antimicrobial use embodied in global supply chains
Zhang, Junya; Ma, Baiwen; Hu, Xiangping; et al. (2026)
Nature Sustainability
The excessive use of antimicrobials has led to increasing levels of antimicrobial resistance that can spread between livestock, humans and the environment, with important One Health implications. Antimicrobial use in the livestock sector represents 73% of global antimicrobial consumption, yet how such antimicrobial use is embedded within international trade and global production networks remains unclear. Here we quantify global antimicrobial footprints and trace them through global supply chains from 2010 to 2020. Global livestock antimicrobial footprints peaked at 118.6 kilotons (kt) in 2013, then fell to 84.0 kt by 2020. China and the USA contributed nearly 60% of the global antimicrobial footprint. Most use remained in domestically produced goods, yet the trade-embodied share rose from 16% to 20%, signalling growing cross-border spillovers. Developed economies showed higher per capita use via trade, whereas developing economies' use was concentrated in local production. Brazil surpassed China as the largest exporter of antimicrobials used in livestock production by 2020. Intriguingly, non-food products, particularly the clothing, services and manufacturing sectors, account for half of the trade-embodied antimicrobial footprint. Thus, global spillover of the effects of antimicrobial use extends well beyond the food system thus requiring policymakers to broaden their focus to better address antimicrobial resistance threats.
Mycorrhizal fungi-mediated uptake of tree-derived nitrogen by maize in smallholder farms
Dierks, Janina; Blaser-Hart, Wilma J.; Gamper, Hannes A.; et al. (2022)
Nature Sustainability
Trees within farmers’ fields can enhance systems’ longer-term productivity, for example, via nutrient amelioration, which is indispensable to attain sustainable agroecosystems. While arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are known to improve plant access to soil nutrients, the potential of AMF to mediate nutrient uptake of tree-derived nitrogen (N) by crops from beyond the crops’ rooting zones is unclear. We hypothesized that AMF quantitatively contribute to the crop uptake of tree-derived N. We set up root- and AMF-exclusion and control plots around faidherbia trees (Faidherbia albida) and used the 15N natural abundance technique to determine the magnitude of AMF-mediated uptake of tree-derived N by maize from beyond its rooting zone in smallholder fields. We further tested whether AMF-mediated N uptake decreases with distance from tree. We show that within one cropping season, maize obtained approximately 35 kg ha–1 biologically fixed N from faidherbia. One-third of tree-derived N in maize leaves was attributed to AMF-mediated N uptake from beyond the maize rooting zone and two-thirds to N from tree leaf litter, regardless of distance from tree. As hypothesized, maize grown close (1 m) to faidherbia obtained significantly more tree-derived N than that at farther distances (4 and 5 m). Thus, the faidherbia–AMF association can enhance agroecosystem functioning.
Best practices for operando hard X-ray absorption spectroscopy
Clark, Adam H.; Schmidt, Thomas; Fabbri, Emiliana (2024)
Nature Sustainability
A powerful technique with broad applications, operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is widely used but there is a lack of design and reporting standards. Focusing on water-splitting electrocatalysts, we propose best practices for the reproducibility, replicability and reliability of operando XAS studies.
The unrealized potential of agroforestry for an emissions-intensive agricultural commodity
Becker, Alexander; Wegner, Jan D.; Dawoe, Evans; et al. (2025)
Nature Sustainability
Reconciling agricultural production with climate change mitigation is a formidable sustainability problem. Retaining trees in agricultural systems is one proposed solution, but the magnitude of the current and future potential benefit that trees contribute to climate change mitigation remains uncertain. Here we help to resolve these issues across a West African region that produces similar to 60% of the world’s cocoa, a crop contributing one of the highest carbon footprints of all foods. Using machine learning, we mapped shade-tree cover and carbon stocks across the region and found that the existing average shade-tree cover is low (similar to 13%) and poorly aligned with climate threats. Yet, increasing shade-tree cover to a minimum of 30% could sequester an additional 307 MtCO(2)e, enough to offset similar to 167% of contemporary cocoa-related emissions in Ghana and C & ocirc;te d’Ivoire-without reducing production. Our approach is transferable to other shade-grown crops and aligns with emerging carbon market and sustainability reporting frameworks.
Cross-national public acceptance of sustainable global supply chain policy instruments
Kolcava, Dennis; Smith, E. Keith; Bernauer, Thomas (2023)
Nature Sustainability
Despite increasing their consumption footprints, high-income countries have improved domestic environmental and labour conditions. This incongruity is enabled by international trade, dissociating consumption benefits from adverse production impacts. However, political debates on new regulation to make environmental and labour practices more sustainable throughout companies' global supply chains have emerged in the Global North. While shifting public sentiment towards regulating global business practices could place sustainability on the policy agenda forefront, citizen support for such policies remains under-identified. Here we explore dimensions of citizen support for global supply chain regulations via survey-embedded experiments. We find that citizens prefer strong reporting requirements and enforcement capabilities across the 12 largest OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) importing countries (N = 24,003). Further, such policy preferences are driven by environmental attitudes and political ideology, and are robust against pro-/anti-market informational manipulation. These results suggest substantial, cross-national public opinion mandates for policy interventions to make global supply chains more transparent. From a sustainability perspective, this is an a priori encouraging finding as it implies that over the last decade, public opinion on this emerging policy topic has matured. Consequently, political actors have an incentive to situate the subject prominently on their policy programmes.
Global expansion of the ecological impact of extra-urban road traffic
van Strien, Maarten J.; Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne (2025)
Nature Sustainability
Road traffic outside of cities (that is, extra-urban road traffic) contributes to ecological and environmental degradation, but the global extent of the ecological impact of extra-urban road traffic is unknown. Using global time-series data on traffic volumes, we generated high-resolution traffic exposure maps that enabled us to estimate road effect zones in which ecological and environmental conditions are likely to be influenced by road traffic. We estimate that the extent of the global terrestrial land influenced by moderate to very high extra-urban road traffic increased by 53% since 1975, reaching 239 million hectares in 2015. Large extents of Europe and North America have been impacted by road traffic since 1975, while the impacted area in large parts of Asia grew rapidly. Alarmingly, 63% of key biodiversity areas were impacted by moderate to very high traffic, with the expansion of road effect zones in these areas outpacing regional rates. Of all land uses, agricultural land was most affected by road traffic. As extra-urban road effect zones are considerably more extensive than urban areas, the ecological and environmental impacts of road traffic are of global concern.
International conflict and cooperation over freshwater resources
Bernauer, Thomas; Böhmelt, Tobias (2020)
Nature Sustainability
Socio-technical Innovation Bundles for Agri-food Systems Transformation
Barrett, Christopher B.; Benton, Tim; Fanzo, Jessica; et al. (2020)
Nature Sustainability

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