Resources Environment and Sustainability最新文献

{"title":"Terrestrial water storage in Australia under stress from compound climate extremes","authors":"Christopher E. Ndehedehe ,&nbsp;Oluwafemi E. Adeyeri ,&nbsp;Vagner G. Ferreira ,&nbsp;Wen Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100242","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100242","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A large proportion of human population could be exposed to future risks from compound climate extremes, which are threatening food and water security. To understand the far-reaching impacts of these extremes on the livelihoods of current and future generations, we need models that are less ambiguous, better suited for impact studies, and more capable of advancing our understanding of future climatic conditions (e.g., rainfall and temperature). To advance such modelling capabilities for impact assessment of compound extremes in Australia, we develop a new framework to combine satellite gravity data with in-situ data and outputs from hydrological models to adjust for biases in the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase general circulation models’ projections of water budget parameters. The impacts of compound climate extremes under different climate scenarios on the freshwater derived from these parameters were then assessed. Our findings show that the Australian east coast will experience a rise in compound hot and wet extremes, and changes to these compound extremes under different climate scenarios will drive freshwater deficits in Australia. The consequences of limiting global warming to different levels (historical, SSP 245, 370, and 585) on freshwater were also identified. We found significant freshwater declines over Australia with Western Australia being the most affected by compound climate extremes (wet and hot extremes) across all global warming scenarios. Considerable percentage changes exceeding -125% in freshwater have been linked to these compound extremes. Our results also reveal that evapotranspiration will emerge as a more crucial indicator to freshwater availability, and that atmospheric dynamics and moisture transport are expected to contribute to considerable changes in freshwater availability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100242"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144307921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wood-derived topsoil cover positively influences the diversity and activity of tomato plant rhizobacteria","authors":"Sara Auriemma ,&nbsp;Atif A. Chowdhury ,&nbsp;Alessandro Sorze ,&nbsp;Francesco Valentini ,&nbsp;Federica Piergiacomo ,&nbsp;Andrea Dorigato ,&nbsp;Lorenzo Brusetti","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100241","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100241","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Worsening water shortages due to climate change have underscored the need for sustainable agricultural practices, including mulching, to restore soil moisture and health. Environmental concerns associated with plastic mulching materials in agriculture have prompted the adoption of biodegradable alternatives. Topsoil cover (TSC), developed through the valorization of wood industry by-products and xanthan gum, offers a sustainable solution. Indigenous microbiomes, predominantly Proteobacteria (e.g., <em>Pseudomonas</em> spp.), Firmicutes (e.g., <em>Staphylococcus</em> spp.), and <em>Aspergillus</em> spp., can biodegrade TSC under controlled condition. Germination tests confirm its effectiveness in weed control. A greenhouse experiment using tomato (<em>Solanum lycopersicum</em>) demonstrated that TSC enhances shoot and root length by 50 and 100%–160% and overall biomass by 30%–50%, without altering rhizosphere soil physicochemical properties or microbial community structure. Additionally, the reversible effect of TSC can enhance the early soil nitrogen pool by 20% through microbial interactions. It also increases soil microbial metabolic diversity, highlighting its potential for agricultural use. Our findings establish TSC as an innovative product that closes the loop on timber industry waste while enhancing soil fertility, promoting plant health, and enabling medium-term carbon storage in wood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100241"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144254510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrative analysis of transboundary land use conflicts in the Aral Sea Basin: A multi-scale assessment of drivers and strategies for sustainable management","authors":"Kaiyue Luo ,&nbsp;Alim Samat ,&nbsp;Peijun Du ,&nbsp;Sicong Liu ,&nbsp;Jiaxi Liang ,&nbsp;Jilili Abuduwaili ,&nbsp;Dana Shokparova ,&nbsp;Mukhiddin Juliev","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100240","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100240","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Addressing escalating land use conflicts (LUCs) is critical for sustainable development in resource-scarce, transboundary regions. The Aral Sea Basin (ASB), Central Asia’s largest transboundary basin characterized by arid conditions and vulnerable ecosystems, serves as a crucial case study. This research introduces an innovative framework, integrating multi-scale spatial assessments with interpretable machine learning (XGBoost-SHAP), to overcome limitations of previous fragmented analyses and provide deeper insights into LUCs dynamics. We systematically evaluated land suitability for ecological preservation, agriculture, and urban construction, quantified conflict intensity, and identified key drivers across the entire ASB, including its Amu Darya and Syr Darya sub-basins. Quantitative results reveal profound spatial heterogeneity in land use potential, with 56.29% of the basin suitable for ecological preservation, only 6.54% for agriculture, and 72.67% for urban construction—indicating dominant ecological value, limited agricultural suitability, and high urban development pressure. Conflicts were found to be pervasive and intense, driven by a complex interplay of natural factors and socio-economic pressures, with distinct upstream-downstream patterns across sub-basins. Crucially, this study provides spatially explicit evidence highlighting the urgent need for integrated, transboundary land management. The results offer actionable, data-driven insights essential for designing targeted strategies, fostering collaborative resource governance, and ultimately promoting sustainable development pathways that balance ecological integrity with human needs in the ASB and similar complex transboundary basins worldwide.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100240"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144288869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"European Union agro-climate policies toward sustainability: Analyzing emission trends and land use dynamics (1990–2021)","authors":"Safwan Mohammed ,&nbsp;Asif Raihan ,&nbsp;Sana Arshad ,&nbsp;Behnam Ata ,&nbsp;Akasairi Ocwa ,&nbsp;Main Al-Dalahmeh ,&nbsp;Endre Harsanyi","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100239","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100239","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The agricultural sector plays a pivotal role in the carbon cycle, making the evaluation of the food–climate nexus essential for effective mitigation policy. This study assesses greenhouse gas (GHG) emission dynamics across the European Union (EU-27) from 1990 to 2021. While 20 of the 27 countries showed significant reductions in emissions (p &lt; 0.05), Mann–Kendall trend analysis revealed an overall significant decline (p &lt; 0.0001), with a Sen’s slope of −2,190 kt CO₂ eq/year. Land use data from CORINE indicated a modest 0.08% expansion in agricultural land, primarily non-irrigated arable land, resulting in a net gain of 2.27 million hectares. Autoregressive distributed lag modeling revealed a short-run reduction (−0.07%) but a long-run increase (＋0.15%) in GHG emissions linked to agricultural land expansion. Granger causality analysis identified strong unidirectional relationships from agricultural drivers—including land use, value-added agriculture, crop and livestock production, and fertilizer use—to emissions. Notably, forest area increased by 12%, contributing to significant emission reductions, and showed bidirectional causality with agricultural land. These results exposed a persistent gap between emission trends and policy targets, recommending for countries and sector-specific interventions in agriculture, livestock, and land-use governance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100239"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144205461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Peatlands-based demonstration of bioeconomy innovations at scale to help achieve many of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals","authors":"Neil J. Rowan","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100238","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100238","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Development of wet peatland innovation (Paludiculture) offers significant potential for the alternative and sustainable use of land for addressing new viable commercial green opportunities. However, the lack of appropriate demonstration facilities has limited the development of Paludiculture. There is a substantial knowledge gap surrounding the design, tangible use and scaling of novel bioeconomy demonstration sites to meet emerging paludiculture innovation and for tailoring strategic policies to unlock regulatory shortcomings. This review addresses the important development of a novel integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) site for demonstrating paludiculture innovation at scale in rewetted peatlands. It addresses novel enablers, drivers and shortcomings for advancing emerging bioeconomy needs using a Penta-helix multiactor framework that meets effective resource management, biomass recycling, pollution control, sustainable production, risk management and predictability. Findings revealed that duckweed growth from this IMTA site (ca. area of 12,800 m²) can remediate 0.78 T yr ⁻¹ of total nitrogen and 0.38 T yr ⁻¹ of total phosphorous from fish waste stream yielding ca. 500 T per yr ⁻¹ duckweed biomass of high protein content (21.84 ± 2.45%). Next generation sequencing and bioinformatic analysis of Illumina and MinION data from the channels revealed a total of 982 species from 341 genera across nine phyla of microalgae that offer future potential to be biorefined on site for new high value products. Additionally, identification of specific microalgae and/or bacterial species can be used as early warning bioindicators of unwanted flux in the defined IMTA ecosystem, such as the impact of extreme weather events on aquaculture. Implications of findings support a strong alignment with zero-waste and zero-pollution principles and will contribute to achieving many of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. This integrated approach provides a novel IMTA blueprint for replicating paludiculture innovation in other demonstration locations globally that will be informed by future tailored life cycle assessment along with end-user evaluation and monitoring needs that addresses circularity, environmental and social impacts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100238"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144083772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the spatio-temporal patterns and driving forces of ecological resource flows in China for post-epidemic sustainable development","authors":"Wenpeng Du ,&nbsp;Xiaozhi Xiang ,&nbsp;Chao Zhang ,&nbsp;Huimin Yan ,&nbsp;Zhong’en Niu","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100237","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100237","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the post-epidemic era, the domestic market as the mainstay in China is signifying a shift whereby interregional trade supersedes international trade as the pivotal driver of regional sustainable development. Thus, the scientific understanding of interregional natural resource flows within China is crucial. This study refers to the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) framework to construct indicators to extend the multi-regional input–output (MRIO) table. This table is then used to explore the interprovincial flow patterns and their determinants of ecological resources in China. The results show that: (1) Ecological resource flow in China predominantly moves from western inland regions to eastern coastal regions, yet the interplay among provinces is evolving into a more intricate pattern. (2) Agricultural production intensity, ecological resource endowment, and geographic distance are consistent and significant factors influencing ecological resource flow patterns. (3) Structural adjustments in ecological resource production or consumption primarily drove changes in net ecological resource flows from 2012 to 2017. Production structural changes in nearly half of the provinces initiated a decoupling of economic development from ecological resources. Meanwhile, consumption structural changes in economically developed provinces steered regional consumption patterns towards greater sustainability. These insights can offer scientific support for the integration of interregional ecological resource mobilization pathways for regional sustainable development in China.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100237"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144069631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enhancing water quality through biomanipulation: Insights into energy flow and nitrogen cycling from a subtropical eutrophic lake for sustainable management","authors":"Guogan Peng ,&nbsp;Ciara Chun Chen ,&nbsp;Linjia Zhou ,&nbsp;Qiaoguo Tan ,&nbsp;Lingfeng Huang ,&nbsp;Jianjie Fu ,&nbsp;Guibin Jiang","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100236","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100236","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Addressing the growing threat of harmful algal blooms driven by eutrophication and climate change, biomanipulation via fish has emerged as a promising strategy to enhance water quality in lake ecosystems. While biomanipulation is often evaluated by its impact on algal control, the influence of food web structure and function on water quality requires further mechanistic understanding. This study pioneers a 22-year ecosystem-scale analysis using Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) model to quantify how a dual biomanipulation strategy involving filter-feeding fish and piscivorous fish reshapes energy flow pathways and nitrogen cycling dynamics in a subtropical eutrophic lake. The findings indicate that the introduction of filter-feeding fish (silver carp, <em>Hypophthalmichthys molitrix</em>, and bighead carp, <em>Aristichthys nobilis</em>) suppress cyanobacterial blooms by redirecting 52.7% of nitrogen to fisheries, while piscivorous fish (bass, <em>Lateolabrax japonicus</em>, and eel, <em>Anguilla japonica</em>) amplify trophic cascades, enhancing zooplankton-mediated microalgal regulation. Food web connectivity increased (connectance: 0.12 to 0.21), minimizing nitrogen flux to detritus and improving water quality by 38%, driven by cyanobacterial biomass suppression, enhanced energy transfer efficiency, and fish-mediated nitrogen removal. These results demonstrate that integrated biomanipulation balances fishery yields with eutrophication control, offering a climate-resilient framework for restoring subtropical lakes globally. This work advances mechanistic insights into nutrient-energy synergies and provides actionable strategies for sustainable aquatic management in warming ecosystems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100236"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143943118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Beyond trade-offs in China’s vegetation-economy dynamics","authors":"Yahan Chen ,&nbsp;Xin Wang ,&nbsp;Zongqiang Xie","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100235","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100235","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Effectively achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) alongside climate change adaptation and mitigation actions requires recognizing synergies and trade-offs among various targets. The relationship between vegetation conservation and economic development is complex and context-dependent across different regions and scales, and the lack of long-term and large-scale data remains a challenge in fully verifying this relationship. Existing area-based vegetation conservation metrics did not account for the ecological heterogeneity of vegetation zones. We proposed a zonal vegetation ratio to measure the extent of conservation of zonal vegetation, defined as the proportion of zonal vegetation area to the total area within a region. We analyzed the relationship of the zonal vegetation ratio with economic levels and Net Primary Productivity (NPP) using three decades of data from more than 2,000 rural counties (<span><math><mo>∼</mo></math></span>94.1% of the total land area) in China. Although the zonal vegetation ratio showed negative correlations with per area economic indicators and NPP nationally, variations occurred across vegetation zones. The relationship was mutually beneficial in the desert and alpine zones, which suggested that vegetation conservation and economic growth could coexist under certain conditions. After controlling for individual and temporal effects, the zonal vegetation ratio positively impacted fiscal revenue. Dynamic panel analyses suggested a potential positive causal link between the zonal vegetation ratio and fiscal revenue, although unobserved external factors limited causal certainty. These findings advocate for context-specific policies to align vegetation conservation and economic development. They highlight the need for further research to validate causal relationships and inform policy formulation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100235"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143937190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Innovative hybrid fuzzy MCDM techniques for adopting the appropriate renewable energy strategy","authors":"Ghazi M. Magableh ,&nbsp;Mahmoud Z. Mistarihi ,&nbsp;Saba Abu Dalu","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100234","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100234","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The future of clean sustainable energy depends on a strategic approach that aligns with national policies, ensuring sustainability and efficiency in renewable energy plans, and ensuring a smooth transition towards clean renewable energy. The study aims to evaluate primary SGE strategies in the UAE considering different factors and fill the gaps from previous studies and contribute by suggesting various strategies for utilizing clean renewable energy, analyzing their importance, suggesting evaluation tools, and presenting a model for adopting the appropriate renewable energy strategy, facilitating resource planning, utilization, and selection. It employs questionnaires, official data, and expert opinions to gather information. The study proposes strategies for utilizing clean renewable energy, analyzes them based on priorities, suggests evaluation tools, and explores UAE’s sustainable green energy use, introducing a cutting-edge model, for selection, analyzing technological solutions, potentials, challenges, and sustainability factors, aligning with UAE’s energy strategies. The model links the potential of SGE sources to adopted strategies to facilitate the future planning. The study presents various SGE strategies assessment methods, including MOORA, SAW, FMOORA, FSAW, combined MOORA-SAW, and FMOORAS-FSAW, and introduces an innovative hybrid MCDM technique for systematic decision-making. The outcomes of the research indicate that the MOORA-SAW integration method aligns with evaluators’ opinions, allowing future comparisons of sustainable and renewable green energy strategies. Open and integrated strategies are preferred when all criteria are balanced, as open strategy encourages innovation and links SGE resource management plans to corporate objectives, while integrated approach promotes regional collaboration. The study’s findings are valuable for decision-makers and countries interested in renewable energy initiatives, helping them select optimal strategies for future sustainable green energy developments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100234"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143943119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Life cycle assessment of recirculating aquaculture systems with innovative biochar filter for enhanced nutrient recirculation","authors":"Marta Behjat ,&nbsp;Magdalena Svanström ,&nbsp;Gregory Peters ,&nbsp;Niklas Wennberg","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100233","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.resenv.2025.100233","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Reducing pollution caused by losses of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) from the technosphere and turning these flows into resources is a focus of current research towards a circular economy. Producing biochar from biomass pyrolysis and using it in agriculture is a promising way to mitigate climate change and improve soil quality. In this study, we explore the environmental performance of using biochar for nutrient recovery in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) and generating a nutrient-enriched biochar for agricultural use. Through prospective life cycle assessment (LCA), the study looks into two different RAS configurations, one with a conventional biofilter and one with the innovative biochar filter. The latter is also explored using two different system perspectives: in the first, the biochar production is considered an activity that happens solely for the purpose of the fish farming but with the added function that it captures and transports nutrients along with stable C to agricultural soil; in the second, biochar is considered already produced and destined for agriculture but it takes a detour to a fish farm to collect some nutrients <em>en route</em>. The main environmental hotspots for the conventional system are related to fish feed production and electricity usage. When the biofilter is replaced by a biochar filter and biochar is generated for the main purpose of being a filter, additional large impacts from forestry biomass production and construction of a pyrolysis plant are associated with the RAS. This is only partially counteracted by recovered heat and nutrients, but for climate impact, the gains related to C sequestration are considerable. A sensitivity analysis revealed considerable variability in the performance of the first RAS biochar configuration due to variations in NH<span><math><msubsup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>4</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>+</mo></mrow></msubsup></math></span> adsorption capacity. When biochar is considered a “sunk cost” - a resource generated for other purposes - the weight of impacts shifts back to fish feed production and to biochar container construction. With regard to overall performance, RAS with biochar shows promising results compared to conventional RAS, but there are variations between impact categories. The innovative technology is promising also when compared with benchmarks in the literature. The technology still needs proof of concept, both concerning the action as a filter and the behaviour as a fertiliser product, but performing an LCA at early stages provided useful insights into further development. It is clear that fish feed is underexplored in LCA contexts. Further work could also look into how the fish sludge could be valorised and what the best system integration is for the innovative technology.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":"21 ","pages":"Article 100233"},"PeriodicalIF":12.4,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144106646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}