Browse Items (128 total)
- Collection: Environmental Systems & Societies
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Sustainability: Transfer project cannot meet China's water needs
Better local water management is the way to keep pace with escalating demands, not pumping water across the country, warn Jon Barnett and colleagues.
The benefits of traditional knowledge
A study of two Balkan ethnic groups living in close proximity finds that traditional knowledge about local plant resources helps communities to cope with periods of famine, and can promote the conservation of biodiversity.
The best science images of 2015
From Pluto to viral structures, this year produced an array of dazzling pictures.
The changing form of Antarctic biodiversity
Antarctic biodiversity is much more extensive, ecologically diverse and biogeographically structured than previously thought. Understanding of how this diversity is distributed in marine and terrestrial systems, the mechanisms underlying its spatial…
The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale
Investigation of premature mortality by seven emission sources of atmospheric pollutants shows that outdoor air pollution, mostly by fine particulate matter, leads to more than three million premature deaths per year worldwide, which could double by…
The effects of life history and sexual selection on male and female plumage colouration
Classical sexual selection theory1, 2, 3, 4 provides a well-supported conceptual framework for understanding the evolution and signalling function of male ornaments. It predicts that males obtain greater fitness benefits than females through multiple…
The formation and fate of internal waves in the South China Sea
Internal oceanic waves are subsurface gravity waves that can be enormous and travel thousands of kilometres before breaking but they are difficult to study; here observations of such waves in the South China Sea reveal their formation mechanism,…
The multi-millennial Antarctic commitment to future sea-level rise
Despite computational and methodological uncertainties, and a wide range of potential greenhouse gas emissions, here millennial-scale simulations of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in a warming climate show that most of Antarctica’s fringing ice shelves will…
The vulnerability of Indo-Pacific mangrove forests to sea-level rise
Assessment of mangrove forest surface elevation changes across the Indo-Pacific coastal region finds that almost 70 per cent of the sites studied do not have enough sediment availability to offset predicted sea-level rise; modelling indicates that…
Thermal biases and vulnerability to warming in the world’s marine fauna
A critical assumption underlying projections of biodiversity change associated with global warming is that ecological communities comprise balanced mixes of warm-affinity and cool-affinity species which, on average, approximate local environmental…
Timing and climate forcing of volcanic eruptions for the past 2,500 years
Ice-core and tree-ring data show that large volcanic eruptions in the tropics and high latitudes were primary drivers of temperature variability in the Northern Hemisphere during the past 2,500 years, firmly implicating such eruptions as catalysts in…
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MegaRegions
Emerging MegaRegions in the Unites States. Megaregions are characterized by a socio-spatial expansion of population, commerce, and resources across a…