Environmental Research Letters最新文献

{"title":"Unraveling the hydropower vulnerability to drought in the United States","authors":"Pouya Moghaddasi, K. Gavahi, H. Moftakhari, Hamid Moradkhani","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6200","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6200","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Drought, a potent natural climatic phenomenon, significantly challenges hydropower systems, bearing adverse consequences for economies, societies, and the environment. This study delves into the profound impact of drought on hydropower generation in the United States, revealing a robust correlation between hydrologic drought and hydroelectricity generation. Our analysis of the period from 2003 to 2020 for the Contiguous United States (CONUS) indicates that drought events led to a considerable decline in hydroelectricity generation, amounting to approximately 300 million MWh, and resulting in an estimated loss of $28 billion to the sector. Moreover, our findings highlight the adverse environmental effect of drought-induced hydropower generation reductions, which are often compensated by increased reliance on natural gas usage, which led to substantial emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxide (NOX), totaling 161,700 kilotons, 119,9 tons, and 181,977 tons, respectively. In addition to these findings, we assess the state-level vulnerability of hydropower to drought, identifying Washington and California as the most vulnerable states, while Nevada exhibits the least vulnerability. Overall, this study enhances understanding of the multifaceted effects of drought on hydropower, which can assist in informing policies and practices related to drought management and energy production.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141655529","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":"Decision analysis for prioritizing climate change adaptation options: a systematic review","authors":"Eri Amanuma, Minoru Fujii, Kenichi Nakajima, Yasuaki Hijioka","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad61fe","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad61fe","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Climate change adaptation options need to be prioritized so that decision-makers make the appropriate choice among multiple options using decision analysis methods. Although different decision analysis methods are applied in different sectors, the status and challenges of applying the methods in various sectors have not been investigated to date because this is a rapidly developing research field. We systematically reviewed the decision analysis literature in climate change adaptation to investigate how decision analysis methods have been applied in each sector and to identify ongoing challenges. We found that most articles focused on the agriculture, water resources, coastal disaster, and river flooding subsectors, whereas no articles were found in the poverty, settlement, and wellbeing subsectors. The applications of decision analysis methods that can account for the deep uncertainty of adaptation (the Deep Uncertainty group) comprised about 15% of the total, and they were concentrated in the water resources and disaster-related subsectors. In the poverty, settlement, and wellbeing subsectors, it can be inferred that academic articles are scarce because it is challenging to study climate change projections due to the strong impact of socioeconomic conditions, and because the actors are often reported at the local or individual levels. Although the sectors where climate change impact projections have been developed may have led to a relatively large proportion of applications of the Deep Uncertainty group, the small number of applications suggests inadequate consideration of uncertainty in all sectors. In the future, it will be crucial for each sector to develop methods to evaluate deep uncertainty; these include using applications in the Deep Uncertainty group and combining multiple decision analysis methods.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141656077","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":"A holistic approach to assessing REDD+ forest loss baselines through ex post analysis","authors":"Maren Pauly, William Crosse, Colin Moore, Kevin Brown, Oliver Griffin, Thom Brade, E. Mitchard, Jeremy Freund, Sarah Appleby, Joshue Tosteson","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad616c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad616c","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects has become a key Nature Based Solutions (NBS) strategy to protect at-risk forests using the sale of verified emission reductions (carbon credits) as financing, generated by reducing forest loss against counterfactual baseline scenarios. Controversy over the reasonableness of such baseline scenarios has thrown this nascent market mechanism into disarray. While new technical approaches to baseline-setting that promise wider market acceptance are set to roll out in the coming years, existing projects are becoming unviable, as carbon credit buyers reduce investment due to lost confidence in the integrity of emissions reduction claims. Transparent, reproducible methods to assess existing REDD+ project baselines are needed in order to provide a clearer picture of the real impact of projects, and provide an objective basis on which investment decisions can be made today. Here we introduce such a method. .. In contrast to existing studies which utilize only one method to create a single “control,” we integrate actual forest loss rates from a variety of control sites to establish a “zone of reasonable accuracy (or ZORA)”. Application of our method in Cambodia, using two geospatial datasets (one global and one locally calibrated), shows that all three project baselines fall within or below ZORA. This approach is fully reproducible, and provides a transparent way for analysts to assess REDD+ baselines during this critical time when investment in forest protection must increase dramatically and without delay.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141660956","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":"On the acceptance of high carbon taxes in low- and middle-income countries: a conjoint survey experiment","authors":"D. Malerba, Babette Never, L. Fesenfeld, Hanna Fuhrmann-Riebel, Sascha Kuhn","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad616b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad616b","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Changing consumption patterns from growing middle-classes with consequent rising energy use and emissions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) present key challenges for the energy transition and climate change mitigation. Carbon taxes are an effective policy instrument to counter these developments, yet concerns about low public acceptability hinder their introduction. Here, we seek to fill a research gap and identify publicly acceptable carbon tax designs in LMICs. We provide novel evidence from three conjoint experiments with 2,700 middle-class respondents in Ghana, Peru, and the Philippines. We show that overall, the majority in all three countries supports even high taxes of USD-PPP 75/tCO2 per year, irrespective of specific policy design features. The support for a very high tax rate is especially high if revenues are recycled for environmental purposes. Thus, governments in LMICs have political leeway to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy via carbon taxes. Moreover, revenue recycling for the poorest receives high support from important subgroups. These insights are crucial to achieving an effective, acceptable, and just carbon tax policy design.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141660874","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":"Temperature responses from methane mitigation approaches vary widely due to non-methane impacts","authors":"S. Abernethy, Robert Buechler, Max I Kessler, Robert B. Jackson","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad60e0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad60e0","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 <jats:p/>","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141663981","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":"Little Evidence of Hysteresis in Regional Precipitation, When Indexed by Global Temperature Rise and Fall in an Overshoot Climate Simulation","authors":"Jeremy Walton, C. Huntingford","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad60de","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad60de","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Society has set the aim of stabilising climate at key temperature thresholds, such as global warming at or below 1.5°C or 2.0°C above preindustrial levels. However, greenhouse gas emissions are failing to decline, and if they continue on their current trajectory it is likely that such thresholds will be crossed in the decades ahead. Because of this risk, there is an emerging focus on overshoot, where, for a temporary period, global warming is allowed to cross critical thresholds to reach a peak value before decreasing to the desired limit. A key question about overshoots is whether there are hysteresis effects—that is, whether global or regional climate has properties that differ between the phase of global warming increase and the phase of decreasing. Here, we analyse temperature and precipitation data from five Earth System Models (ESMs) forced by the SSP5-3.4-OS CMIP6 overshoot scenario. We look at the level of precipitation during two periods of near-identical global warming: one whilst temperatures are rising, and the other when they are falling. For global means, we find a statistically significant difference between precipitation values during the two periods. This is an example of hysteresis, as the reversion to an earlier global warming state results in a level of global rainfall which is different from that observed when warming was increasing. Spatial disaggregation of rainfall differences between the two near-identical warming levels shows the largest differences in the tropical region, which are statistically significant for four of the five ESMs. When considering much smaller regions, including parts of the tropics, there remains some evidence of hysteresis. However, the differences are no longer statistically significant against a background of substantial interannual rainfall variability. We discuss the implications of our findings for climate impacts assesments.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141664018","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":"Health at the centre of climate change negotiations: critical achievements from the COP28 Health Programme","authors":"Aditya Vyas, Arthur Wyns, P. Beggs, Ying Zhang","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad60e1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad60e1","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 <jats:p/>","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141664256","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":"Sand mining across the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna catchment; assessment of activity and implications for sediment delivery","authors":"A. Daham, G. S. Sambrook Smith, Andrew P. Nicholas, Andrea Gasparotto, Julian Clark, Tahmina Yasmin","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6016","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While issues of pollution, floods and drought in our rivers are widely studied, there is a hidden crisis with respect to the widespread global extraction of sand. Large volumes of sand are needed in the construction industry to make concrete. So far, calls for greater monitoring of sand mining activity have largely gone unmet. This is due to the fact mining is extensive, often hidden (e.g. underwater) and thus very difficult to properly assess. To meet this challenge, we use remote sensing methods to detect and monitor sand mining activities at the catchment scale, across the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system (catchment size 1.72 million km2). Based on this analysis, here we show that mining activity is diverse and pervasive across the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna catchment system for our study period of 2016-2021, with rates of extraction increasing within some of the rivers. Results show the total estimate for sand extraction is ~ 115 MTyr-1 +/- 20 MTyr-1, which is of a similar order of magnitude to the natural bedload flux of the catchment. While there are some limitations to deriving estimates based solely on imagery, this work highlights both the widespread spatial extent and large magnitude of sand mining for one of the world’s biggest catchments. Furthermore, given our estimated scale of sand extraction, it demonstrates the need to properly account for mining activities when considering delivery of sediment to deltas in terms of the management of these vulnerable systems in the face of rising sea-levels. Overall, this work stresses the urgent requirement for further similar studies of sand extraction in the world’s large rivers, which is vital to underpin sustainable management plans for the global sand commons.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141668290","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":"Soil application of high-lignin fermentation byproduct to increase the sustainability of liquid biofuel production from crop residues","authors":"Lee R Lynd, A. Kemanian, Jo U Smith, Tom L Richard, Anela Arifi, Stefano Bozzetto, Claudio Fabbri, John L Field, Caitlin Hicks Pries, Matt Kubis, Pete Smith, Michelle Wang, Madeline Hoey","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad601a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad601a","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 When digestates from anaerobic digestion of crop residues are added to soil, a considerable body of information indicates that soil organic carbon (SOC) levels are comparable to those when crop residues are left in the field. This occurs although the amount of digestate added to soil is diminished by digestion and implies that digestion increases the proportion of carbon inputs stabilized as SOC. Here we examine the likelihood and implications of these features being manifested for soil application of high lignin-fermentation byproduct (HLFB) from liquid biofuel production. We show that steady-state SOC levels are much less sensitive to crop residue removal with HLFB return than without it, and provide an example supporting the feasibility of foregoing process energy and coproduct revenue when HLFB is returned to the soil. Informed by this review and analysis, we expect with moderate confidence that long-term SOC levels for soils amended with HLFB from some liquid cellulosic biofuel processes will be similar to those occurring when crop residues are left in the field. We have high confidence that the economically optimum rate of fertilizer nitrogen (N) application and N2O emissions will be lower at most sites for HLFB return to the soil than if crop residues were left in the field. We estimate that the per hectare N demand for processing crop residues to liquid biofuels is about a third of the per hectare demand for crop production, giving rise to an opportunity to use N twice and thereby realize cost savings and environmental benefits. These observations support but do not prove the hypothesis that a \"win-win\" is possible wherein large amounts of liquid biofuel feedstock can be obtained from crop residues while improving the economics and sustainability of food and feed production. A research agenda aimed at exploring and testing this hypothesis is offered.","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141668013","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":"Rate of global warming projected to decline under current policy","authors":"Lei Duan, Ken Caldeira","doi":"10.1088/1748-9326/ad6018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 <jats:p>n/a</jats:p>","PeriodicalId":507917,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Research Letters","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141667378","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}