Environmental Research Letters最新文献

{"title":"Using policy scenarios to assess challenges and opportunities for reaching restoration targets in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest","authors":"Yara Shennan-Farpón, Aline C Soterroni, Marluce Scarabello and Piero Visconti","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5ab2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5ab2","url":null,"abstract":"Brazil’s Atlantic Forest is a global restoration hotspot. Most of the remaining forest areas are degraded and separated by large cities, and agricultural lands essential for national food security. Brazil’s restoration agenda is defined by multiple national and global restoration targets and policies, including Brazil’s Native Vegetation Protection Law (No. 12,651/2012) also known as the Forest Code, which sets minimum levels of native vegetation to be maintained or restored in rural properties. In this study we simulate the impacts of alternative restoration policies addressing targets for Brazil, and explore their impacts on selected terrestrial species and agricultural development potential in the Atlantic Forest biome. Our results show several policy options could result in different restoration amounts and spatial distributions being implemented between 2020 and 2050, but trade-offs between agriculture, biodiversity and rural livelihoods differ. Compared to the baseline scenario (implementation of the Forest Code), a scenario which focuses restoration on small farms (not mandated to undergo restoration under the current legislation) could increase forest area by 6.7 Mha across the biome (139% more than with the Forest Code), while a scenario which maximizes biodiversity gains could lead to an additional 3.9 Mha by 2050 (81% more compared to the Forest Code). We find that our restoration scenarios still allow cropland expansion and an increase in cattle herd, while pasturelands decrease. There are relatively small agricultural production losses under the alternative restoration scenarios when compared to the baseline (up to 14.4%), meaning that cattle ranching intensification is critical to enable large-scale restoration to co-exist with agricultural production. Our scenarios suggest that ambitious restoration targets in the Atlantic Forest biome (up to 15.5 Mha, consistent with existing regional initiatives) could be feasible with necessary improvements in pasture yield and a focus on scaling up support and developing restoration policies for smallholder farmers.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141746196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Energy efficient homes for rodent control across cityscapes","authors":"Gabriel I Gadsden, Kristy M Ferraro and Nyeema C Harris","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5ab5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5ab5","url":null,"abstract":"Cities spend millions of dollars on rodent mitigation to reduce public health risks. Despite these efforts, infestations remain high and distressing. Rodents thrive in the built environment in part due to reduced natural predators and their exploitation of garbage. Though sanitation and greenspace are important factors in rodent mitigation, more complex governance and actions are needed. Urban rodents are dynamic and commensal in nature, so understanding the influence of prolific urban features, like building attributes, warrants scrutiny and additionally intersects mitigation strategies with stakeholders at a localized level. Here, we model how residential structures’ efficiency influences urban rodent populations. To do so, we created an agent-based model using characteristics of urban brown rats and their natural predator, red foxes, based on three distinct neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We varied whether retrofitting occurred and its duration as well as the percent of initial energy-efficient homes in each neighborhood. We found that initial housing conditions, retrofitting, and the duration of retrofitting all significantly reduced final rodent populations. However, retrofitting was most effective in reducing rodent populations in neighborhoods with extensive park access and low commercial activity. Additionally, across neighborhoods, single large efficiency initiatives showed greater potential for rodent reduction. Lastly, we show that the costs of large-scale retrofitting schemes are comparable to ten-year public health spending, demonstrating that retrofitting may have the potential to offset near-term costs. Our results showcase how system-view investments in integrated pest management can lead to sustained rodent pest mitigation and advance sustainable development goals, infrastructure innovation (Goal #9), reduced inequalities (Goal #10), and sustainable cities and communities (Goal #11).","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141744223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Toward a satellite-based monitoring system for urban CO2 emissions in support of global collective climate mitigation actions","authors":"Taylor Y Wilmot, John C Lin, Dien Wu, Tomohiro Oda and Eric A Kort","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6017","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past decade, 1000s of cities have pledged reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. However, tracking progress toward these pledges has largely relied exclusively on activity-based, self-reported emissions inventories, which often underestimate emissions due to incomplete accounting. Furthermore, the lack of a consistent framework that may be deployed broadly, across political boundaries, hampers understanding of changes in both city-scale emissions and the global summation of urban emissions mitigation actions, with insight being particularly limited for cities within the global south. Given the pressing need for rapid decarbonization, development of a consistent framework that tracks progress toward city-scale emissions reduction targets, while providing actionable information for policy makers, will be critical. Here, we combine satellite-based observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and an atmospheric model to present an atmospherically-based framework for monitoring changes in urban emissions and related intensity metrics. Application of this framework to 77 cities captures ∼16% of global carbon dioxide emissions, similar in magnitude to the total direct emissions of the United States or Europe, and demonstrates the framework’s ability to track changes in emissions via satellite-observation. COVID-19 lockdowns correspond to an average ∼21% reduction in emissions across urban systems over March–May of 2020 relative to non-lockdown years. Urban scaling analyses suggest that per capita energy savings drive decreases in emissions per capita as population density increases, while local affluence and economic development correspond to increasing emissions. Results highlight the potential for a global atmospherically-based monitoring framework to complement activity-based inventories and provide actionable information regarding interactions between city-scale emissions and local policy actions.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141744362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Leveraging machine learning to understand opposition to environmental tax increases across countries and over time","authors":"Johannes Brehm and Henri Gruhl","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5d0a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5d0a","url":null,"abstract":"Taxes targeting fuel, road usage, or carbon emissions for environmental protection often face public opposition. Can widely accessible machine learning methods aid in predicting and understanding opposition to environmental taxes? This study uses the random forest algorithm to predict opposition to increased environmental taxes based on 41 theoretically relevant respondent characteristics. Drawing on nationally representative surveys, we predict individual tax opposition across 28 countries in 2010 and 2020 (N = 70 710). Personal values and environmental evaluations tend to be more influential than demographics in predicting tax opposition, with key variables differing between countries and over time. A lack of commitment to pro-environmental behavior is the most important predictor in emerging economies. Conversely, concerns about environmental issues and prioritization of jobs and prices are influential in high-income countries, gaining prominence over the previous decade. Policymakers can leverage these insights to tailor communication of environmental tax increases in different contexts, emphasizing, for instance, job creation.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141744372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Elevated CO2 concentrations contribute to a closer relationship between vegetation growth and water availability in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes","authors":"Yang Song, Yahui Guo, Shijie Li, Wangyipu Li and Xiuliang Jin","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5f43","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5f43","url":null,"abstract":"The Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, with large human populations and terrestrial carbon sinks, have a high demand for and dependence on water resources. Despite the growing interest in vegetation responses to drought under climate change in this region, our understanding of changes in the relationship between vegetation growth and water availability (referred to as Rvw) remains limited. Here, we aim to explore the Rvw and its drivers in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes between 1982 and 2015. We used the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the fine-resolution Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) as proxies for vegetation growth and water availability, respectively. The trend analysis results showed that changes in NDVI and PDSI were asynchronous over the past three decades. Moreover, we analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of the correlation coefficient between NDVI and PDSI. The results indicated that the Rvw was getting closer in more areas over the period, but there were differences across ecosystems. Specifically, most croplands and grasslands were primarily constrained by water deficit, which was getting stronger; however, most forests were primarily constrained by water surplus, which was getting weaker. Furthermore, our random forest regression models indicated that the dominant driver of changes in the NDVI-PDSI correlation was atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in more than 45% of grid cells. In addition, the partial correlation analysis results demonstrated that elevated CO2 concentrations not only boosted vegetation growth through the fertilizer effect but also indirectly enhanced water availability by improving water use efficiency. Overall, this study highlights the important role of atmospheric CO2 in mediating the Rvw under climate change, implying a potential link between vegetation greening and drought risk.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141610222","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"In praise of cooking gas subsidies: transitional fuels to advance health and equity *","authors":"Carlos F Gould, Rob Bailis, Kalpana Balakrishnan, Marshall Burke, Sebastián Espinoza, Sumi Mehta, Samuel B Schlesinger, José R Suarez-Lopez and Ajay Pillarisetti","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5d06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5d06","url":null,"abstract":"Households that burn biomass in inefficient open fires—a practice that results in $1.6 trillion in global damages from health impacts and climate-altering emissions yearly—are often unable to access cleaner alternatives, like gas, which is widely available but unaffordable, or electricity, which is unattainable for many due to insufficient supply and reliability of electricity services. Governments are often reluctant to make gas affordable. We argue that condemnation of all fossil fuel subsidies is short-sighted and does not adequately consider subsidizing gas for cooking as a potential strategy to improve public health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141610178","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The forest loss within small reservoirs surpasses that of large reservoirs across the tropics","authors":"Feng Yang, Yingzuo Qin, Rongrong Xu, Lei Deng and Zhenzhong Zeng","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5dce","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5dce","url":null,"abstract":"The vast potential of hydropower remains crucial in addressing the escalating need for clean energy, particularly in Tropical Moist Forests (TMFs) regions. Yet, the widespread construction of reservoirs within TMFs has resulted in the inundation of forested areas, exacerbating the fragmentation of forest landscapes and contributing additional loss of carbon stored in these ecosystems. Despite this, the scale and degree of forest loss within reservoirs due to inundation from reservoir construction remain poorly quantified and mapped across tropical regions. Here, we leverage long-term TMFs data spanning from 1990 to 2021 to investigate forest loss within reservoirs across tropical regions. We reveal that forest losses within reservoirs total 3521 km2, constituting a relatively small fraction of total forest loss. Nonetheless, the spatial distribution of forest loss within reservoirs varies significantly across the tropics, with patchy distributions observed in the American and African TMFs, and striped patterns evident in the Asian TMFs. Contrary to common assumptions, we show that small reservoirs exhibit higher levels of forest loss compared to large reservoirs, particularly pronounced in the African TMFs region. Furthermore, our projections indicate that the exclusive construction of small reservoirs contributes to approximately 27% of Africa’s total forest area lost. We underscore the importance of policymakers carefully evaluating the trade-offs associated with the construction of large versus small reservoirs in TMF regions, to minimize the adverse impacts of hydropower development on forest ecosystems.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141610177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Solar-powered irrigation in Nepal: implications for fossil fuel use and groundwater extraction","authors":"Kashi Kafle, Soumya Balasubramanya, David Stifel and Manohara Khadka","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5f46","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5f46","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, use of solar-powered irrigation pumps (SIPs) has increased significantly in the agricultural plains (terai) of Nepal. Federal and local governments there have subsidized the pumps in an effort to expand irrigated agriculture using renewable energy. We use data from a cross-sectional survey of 656 farming households in the terai to examine how SIPs affect fossil fuel use and groundwater extraction. We find that most SIP users continued to use their fossil-fuel pumps, as very few completely replaced them with solar pumps. Farmers who received SIPs operated their irrigation pumps more hours than those who did not receive SIPs. Taken together, these findings suggest that groundwater use has increased, as SIP recipients ‘stack’ their pumps. We also find that solar pumps were more likely to be owned by richer households and those with better social networks than those who were poorer and had relative social disadvantage. As Nepal expands the use of solar pumps in agriculture, policy efforts may benefit from managing expectations about the carbon-mitigation potential of this technology, managing groundwater risks as SIP use expands, and making SIPs more inclusive.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"79 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141610225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impact of diffuse radiation on the coupling of carbon and water fluxes in the grassland of northeastern China","authors":"Jingchao Huang, Xu Yue, Bin Wang, Xiaofei Lu and Gang Dong","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5fa5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5fa5","url":null,"abstract":"Solar radiation is a key driver of ecosystem carbon and water fluxes. However, the impacts of radiation quantity and quality on the carbon-water coupling are not well distinguished. In this study, we used simultaneous flux and radiation measurements at two grassland sites in northeastern China to explore the joint impacts of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and diffuse fraction (Kd) on carbon and water fluxes and their coupling relationships. Under the low to medium PAR levels (<280 W m−2), gross primary productivity (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) increased continuously with Kd but the sensitivity of GPP (8.4%–8.8% per 0.1 increase in Kd) was significantly higher than that of ET (2.2%–5.0% per 0.1 increase in Kd) at both sites. Under the high PAR levels (>280 W m−2), the GPP continued to grow at the southern site but showed limited responses to Kd at the northern site, likely due to the temperature constraint in the latter. Meanwhile, the contribution of evaporation to ET increased under the high radiation conditions, resulting in a decreased ET due to the reduced direct radiation following Kd increment at both sites. Consequently, water use efficiency (WUE) increased with Kd for all radiation levels but showed low sensitivity to PAR changes due to the synchronized GPP and ET responses to PAR. This study unraveled the positive dependence of ecosystem WUE on the increased Kd though with varied sensitivities of GPP and ET under different PAR levels, highlighting the strong impacts of diffuse radiation on ecosystem fluxes over the regions with aerosol pollution and cloud variations.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141610223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wastewater discharges and urban land cover dominate urban hydrology signals across England and Wales","authors":"Gemma Coxon, Hilary McMillan, John P Bloomfield, Lauren Bolotin, Joshua F Dean, Christa Kelleher, Louise Slater and Yanchen Zheng","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad5bf2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5bf2","url":null,"abstract":"Urbanisation is an important driver of changes in streamflow. These changes are not uniform across catchments due to the diverse nature of water sources, storage, and pathways in urban river systems. While land cover data are typically used in urban hydrology analyses, other characteristics of urban systems (such as water management practices) are poorly quantified which means that urbanisation impacts on streamflow are often difficult to detect and quantify. Here, we assess urban impacts on streamflow dynamics for 711 catchments across England and Wales. We use the CAMELS-GB dataset, which is a large-sample hydrology dataset containing hydro-meteorological timeseries and catchment attributes characterising climate, geology, water management practices and land cover. We quantify urban impacts on a wide range of streamflow dynamics (flow magnitudes, variability, frequency, and duration) using random forest models. We demonstrate that wastewater discharges from sewage treatment plants and urban land cover dominate urban hydrology signals across England and Wales. Wastewater discharges increase low flows and reduce flashiness in urban catchments. In contrast, urban land cover increases flashiness and frequency of medium and high flow events. We highlight the need to move beyond land cover metrics and include other features of urban river systems in hydrological analyses to quantify current and future drivers of urban streamflow.","PeriodicalId":11747,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141610176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}