Global demand for food, including rising consumption of meat and dairy products, is increasing pressure on the environment and natural resources, often in locations distant from points of consumption. To identify and quantify consumer driven impacts and the components of the supply chain where sustainability interventions will be most effective, spatially explicit consumption-linked indicators that encompass environmental risks are required. Large amounts of phosphorus fertilizers are used in Brazilian soybean cultivation, which potentially cause eutrophication and impact freshwater species. We use a sub-national trade model to develop a spatially explicit approach for assessing commodity-driven phosphorus fertilizer use and its potential impact on biodiversity linked to four key consumers. The use of phosphorus for embedded consumption per capita of Brazilian soybean in China, the EU, the UK, and Sweden are estimated at municipal level and combined with metrics that influence losses of phosphorus to create a normalised relative risk index. The relative risk index is presented in geospatial visualisations to explore geographical patterns of risk to freshwater biodiversity and make the link between consumer and producer countries less obscure. The results indicate high phosphorus-linked species risk in municipalities within Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Goiás. Sweden and the UK generate the highest relative risk and the geographical patterns of risk differ between the investigated consuming countries, showing that smaller countries can have relatively large impacts at a spatially explicit scale. In the Amazon biome, risk of nutrient losses and biodiversity are relatively high, creating concerns as soybean production is expanding into the area. The results and methodological approach can contribute to understanding of accountability, agency, and increased transparency for the governance of global supply chains, necessary for enabling transformations towards sustainable food systems.

This paper presents an idea analysis of AI in the policy documents and reports of the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Economic Forum. The three organisations expect AI to contribute to sustainability and a prosperous future with better data analysis, greater amounts of quantitative knowledge, and by making economic and social activities less wasteful and more energy efficient. Several challenges are also named: ethics, human rights, cybersecurity, access to reliable data, transparency, and the digital gap. The solutions presented are multi-stakeholder collaboration, cohesive but flexible governance frameworks, but also taking the lead to push for ethical and value-based AI and making sure AI is sustainable. Ideas about AI appear to stem from discourses of ecological modernisation and green governmentality. This framing turns political and structural challenges into technical issues to be solved with more data, greater collaboration, and technical progress. The similarities in ideas between the EU, the UN, and the World Economic Forum also suggest that ideas about AI and sustainable development have reached discourse institutionalisation. Ideas about AI are therefore likely to reinforce already existing institutional and discursive settings.

Aquatic networks contribute greenhouse gases and lateral carbon (C) export from catchments. The magnitudes of these fluxes exceed the global land C sink but are uncertain. Resolving this uncertainty is important for understanding climate feedbacks. We quantified vertical methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from lakes and streams, and lateral export of dissolved inorganic and organic carbon from a hemiboreal catchment for 3 yr. Lateral C fluxes dominated the total aquatic C flux. All aquatic C fluxes were disproportionately contributed from spatially restricted areas and/or short-term events. Hence, consideration of local and episodic variability is vital. Temperature and runoff were the main temporal drivers for lake and stream C emissions, respectively. Whole-catchment aquatic C emissions scaled linearly with these drivers within timeframes of stable land-cover. Hence, temperature and runoff increase across Northern Hemisphere humid areas from climate change may yield proportional increases in aquatic C fluxes.

Artificial Earth: A Genealogy of Planetary Technicity offers an intellectual history of humanity as a geological force, focusing on a prevalent contradiction in the Anthropocene discourse on global environmental change: on the one hand, it has been argued that there are hardly any pristine environments anymore, to the degree that the concept of nature has lost its meaning; while on the other, that anthropogenic environmental change has become so prevailing that it ought to be conceived of as a force of nature, in the literal sense of the expression. Artificial Earth argues that to fully grasp the stakes of this discourse, we need not only understand the contemporary scientific and technological transformations behind the Anthropocene, but also explore the history of an ontological concern tied up with it.

In order to do so, Artificial Earth examines reflections on the ontological dualism between nature and artifice within the history of earth science from the late eighteenth century onwards. Paying particular attention to its consequences for how human subjectivity has been conceptualized in the Anthropocene, it then enrolls these resources in an effort to problematize attempts since the 1980s to formalize earth science in systems theoretical terminology. In sum, the aim is to investigate the historical conditions for the possibility of conceiving human artifice as an integral part of the earth’s terrestrial environment, with the conviction that such an investigation may assist in resolving the aforementioned contradiction or at least to understand it better by tracing its historical lineage.

Scientists and decision-makers recognise artificial intelligence (AI) as a potential tool to solve sustainability issues. However, AI solutions can be leveraged for different ends and through different means. This paper presupposes that this process is contingent upon overarching environmental security discourses. It reviews how the use of AI as presented in the literature fits into national, international, human and ecological security perspectives. A national climate security discourse could emphasise military uses of AI and its role in propaganda and misinformation. The international security discourse suggests that international organisations can take advantage of AI to conduct their mission. However, transnational companies can also benefit from AI, with potential negative outcomes on consumption and resource extraction. Public–private collaboration for military AI grants transnational companies and states tools to hinder environmental movements. A human security discourse emphasises the role of AI in reaching the sustainable development goals but should consider potential power imbalances to prevent inequalities. Finally, an ecological understanding of climate security emphasises the role of algorithms in shaping our vision of the environment, and how it potentially estranges us from other cosmologies and the environmental impact of AI. This reflection opens avenues to explore the interplay between AI, geopolitics and environmental protection.

Global population growth, especially in developing countries, will most likely require an increase in agricultural production, but the sustainability of this production cannot be achieved without the preservation of ecosystem functions. Therefore, farmers need to know about, and deal with, the trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystem functions and services. This review aims to assess practical science-based tools that can be used to make decisions for sustainable agricultural production. We reviewed 184 articles and divided them into categories depending on whether they describe tools, practices, ecosystem services, models, or other topics. Although many studies were global in scope, the approach to analyzing and assessing trade-offs appears to vary geographically. The review showed that trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystem functions are most commonly studied in Europe and Asia, while few studies have been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. Most tools in the review addressed only one or a bundle of ecosystem services, related to water, biodiversity, or climate regulation, and were designed for different types of land use and ecosystems and applicable at different scales. More practical tools for trade-off analysis have mainly been developed and applied by development organizations with support from science. Closer collaboration between practitioners, development organizations, and scientists is suggested to foster co-development of tools useful for identifying sustainable strategies for closing the yield gap, increasing productivity and for balancing ecosystem services, building on the Sustainable Development Goal’s framework and its targets for agricultural productivity and ecosystem services for trade-off analysis. We recommend the development and fine-tuning of the identified tools to specific contexts and landscapes through innovation platforms bringing together farmers, extension workers, scientists, and local decision-makers.

Global population growth, especially in developing countries, will most likely require an increase in agricultural production, but the sustainability of this production cannot be achieved without the preservation of ecosystem functions. Therefore, farmers need to know about, and deal with, the trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystem functions and services. This review aims to assess practical science-based tools that can be used to make decisions for sustainable agricultural production. We reviewed 184 articles and divided them into categories depending on whether they describe tools, practices, ecosystem services, models, or other topics. Although many studies were global in scope, the approach to analyzing and assessing trade-offs appears to vary geographically. The review showed that trade-offs between agricultural productivity and ecosystem functions are most commonly studied in Europe and Asia, while few studies have been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. Most tools in the review addressed only one or a bundle of ecosystem services, related to water, biodiversity, or climate regulation, and were designed for different types of land use and ecosystems and applicable at different scales. More practical tools for trade-off analysis have mainly been developed and applied by development organizations with support from science. Closer collaboration between practitioners, development organizations, and scientists is suggested to foster co-development of tools useful for identifying sustainable strategies for closing the yield gap, increasing productivity and for balancing ecosystem services, building on the Sustainable Development Goal’s framework and its targets for agricultural productivity and ecosystem services for trade-off analysis. We recommend the development and fine-tuning of the identified tools to specific contexts and landscapes through innovation platforms bringing together farmers, extension workers, scientists, and local decision-makers.

Medan forskning kring utbildning i relation till FN:s globala mål för hållbar utveckling ökat sedan målenantogs 2015, finns det fortfarande få studier om förskoleutbildningens roll i en stundande samhällstransformationi enlighet med Agenda 2030. Den här studien syftar till att utforska utmaningar och möjlighetermed utbildning för FN:s globala mål för barn mellan 1-5 år. Genom en analys av fokusgruppssamtal medförskolepersonal visar studien att: 1) trots intention om en ämnesövergripande undervisning, tenderarfrågor om hållbar utveckling, och Agenda 2030, att bli fragmenterade, 2) förskolepersonal upplever attförskolan har goda förutsättningar att bedriva undervisning för hållbar utveckling, samt 3) förskolepersonaluttrycker att det finns ett dilemma mellan å ena sidan vikten av att se till och ta hänsyn till barnensintresse, och å andra sidan att bibehålla mål och fokus.

In this paper, we study the powerful imaginative space of the fossil-free society in Swedish climate policy discourse taking shape in collaboration between the Swedish government and industry actors. In 2017, the Swedish parliament decided that Sweden should arrive at net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by the year 2045, and an ambitious climate policy framework was adopted. We trace the promise attached to the sociotechnical imaginary of the fossil-free society as it is mobilized by the government initiative fossil-free Sweden (FFS) to gain support for industrial decarbonization. We build on analyses of roadmaps produced by FFS together with the Swedish steel, cement and petroleum industries, as well as semi-structured interviews with selected industry actors. We find that the roadmaps work as powerful ‘techniques of futuring’ which enable industry actors to anticipate the risks and opportunities attached to the fossil-free society while also contributing to shaping that society. The roadmaps effectively involve the industrial actors in the political project of decarbonization, but they also consolidate around an imagined future that is a techno-optimistic extension of the fossil-intensive present. 

The assumed dominance of chloride (Cl–) in terrestrial ecosystems is challenged by observations of extensive formation of organically bound Cl (Clorg), resulting in large soil Cl storage and internal cycling. Yet, little is known about the spatial distribution of Cl in ecosystems. We quantified patterns of Cl distribution in different habitats along a boreal hillslope moisture gradient ranging from relatively dry upland coniferous forests to wet discharge areas dominated by alder. We confirmed that dry habitats are important for Cl storage but found that Cl pools tended to be larger in moist and wet habitats. The storage of Clorg was less important in wet habitats, suggesting a shift in the balance between soil chlorination and dechlorination rates. Cl concentrations in the herb layer vegetation were high in wet and moist sites attributed to a shift in plant species composition, indicating plant community-dependent ecosystem Cl cycling. Mass-balance calculations showed that internal Cl cycling increased overall ecosystem Cl residence times at all sites and that plant uptake rates of Cl– were particularly high at wet sites. Our results indicate that habitat characteristics including plant communities and hydrology are key for understanding Cl cycling in the environment.

Rivers are natural biogeochemical systems shaping the fates of dissolved organic matter (DOM) from leaving soils to reaching the oceans. This study focuses on Amazon basin DOM processing employing negative and positive electro-spray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (ESI[+/-] FT-ICR MS) and nuclear mag-netic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) to reveal effects of major processes on the compositional space and structural characteristics of black, white and clear water systems. These include non-conservative mixing at the confluences of (1) Solimoes and the Negro River, (2) the Amazon River and the Madeira River, and (3) in-stream processing of Amazon River DOM between the Madeira River and the Tapajos River. The Negro River (black water) supplies more highly oxygenated and high molecular weight compounds, whereas the Solimoes and Madeira Rivers (white water) contribute more CHNO and CHOS molecules to the Amazon River main stem. Aliphatic CHO and abundant CHNO compounds prevail in Tapajos River DOM (clear water), likely originating from primary production. Sorption onto particles and heterotrophic microbial degradation are probably the principal mechanisms for the observed changes in DOM composition in the Amazon River and its tributaries.

Recent multiple natural hazards and compound climate events studies have iden-tified a range of interaction types and examined natural hazard interactions in various locations. Yet, there are calls for examining relevant multiple natural hazards in still unstudied national contexts as Sweden. Moreover, multi-hazard concepts rarely consider climate change effects, despite the call of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to adopt multi-hazard approaches and the growing recognition that compound events should be considered "normal". Using a systematic literature study, the paper presents a national natural hazard interaction framework for Sweden identifying 39 cascading, 56 disposition alteration, 3 additional hazard potential, and 17 coincident triggering interactions between 20 natural hazards. Reviewed gray literature, an expert workshop, and reviewed climate research suggest increases of multiple natural hazards with heat wave and heavy rain as triggering or driving events and with hydrological hazards, for instance, fluvial floods, landslides, and debris flows, as the main consequences.

Nature-based solutions (NbS); working with and enhancing nature to address societal challenges, increasingly feature in climate change adaptation strategies. Despite growing evidence that NbS can reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts in general, understanding of the mechanisms through which this is achieved, particularly in the Global South, is lacking. To address this, we analyse 85 nature-based interventions across the rural Global South, and factors mediating their effectiveness, based on a systematic map of peer-reviewed studies encompassing a wide diversity of ecosystems, climate impacts, and intervention types. We apply an analytical framework of peoples social-ecological vulnerability to climate change, in terms of six pathways of vulnerability reduction: social and ecological exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Most cases (95%) report a reduction in vulnerability, primarily by lowering ecosystem sensitivity to climate impacts (73% of interventions), followed by reducing social sensitivity (52%), reducing ecological exposure (36%), increasing social adaptive capacity (31%), increasing ecological adaptive capacity (19%) and/or reducing social exposure (14%). Our analysis shows that social dimensions of NBS are important mediating factors for equity and effectiveness. This study highlights how understanding the distinct social and ecological pathways by which vulnerability to climate change is reduced can help harness the multiple benefits of working with nature in a warming world.

This article responds to recent calls for more creative expressions of climate and sustainabilitytransformations. In particular, research literature argues that the formulation of new narratives ofsustainable societies may function as a prominent intervention for system changes. Yet, few empiricalstudies exist on how creative climate and sustainability storytelling elicit varying levels of awareness andengagement. With the intention to advance scholarship in the role of narratives to create engagement withsustainability transformations, this study investigates children’s theater for the UN Sustainable DevelopmentGoals (SDGs) as one research site. By analyzing the interactive children’s theater play “Esmeralda and theDragon—The Global Sustainability Goals,”we show that creative storytelling can offer a meaningful space forengagement with Agenda 2030 and the UN SDGs. In particular, we find that (1) children’s cognitive andemotional associations and experiences shape the meaning of and responses to the SDGs and (2) the play’sfictional elements resonate with children’s emotional frameworks. Based on the results, we argue that newstories are needed for sustainability transformations and that there is transformative power in the creativeand performance arts in this respect, and we call for further exploration of various publics engagements withsustainability storytelling.

Headwater streams are often characterized by turbulence, organic matter inputs from terrestrial systems, net heterotrophy, and the microbial loop supplying carbon and energy for consumers. However, ecological models overlook dark carbon fixation (DCF), the light-independent inorganic carbon uptake, mainly based on chemosynthesis, using energy yields from redox reactions. The quantification of microbial biomass production, including DCF, heterotrophic production (HP), gross primary production (GPP), and ecosystem respiration (ER) in lotic aquatic systems, has long yet to be addressed. Here, we investigate HP and DCF in water, sediment, and litter in addition to GPP and ER from streams in pristine rainforests in three distinct sub-basins of the Amazon River, assessing the variety of turbid, black, and clear waters. We observed mean (min-max) values of microbial biomass production of about 0.1 (0.02-1.2), 3.2 (0.8-14.1), and 0.1 (0.02-0.5) mg C m-2 h-1 in water, sediment, and litter samples, in which DCF : HP showed mean (min-max) values of 0.5 (0.2-2), 0.02 (0.001-0.07), and 0.2 (0.001-0.5). Hence, measurements yielded DCF of similar magnitude as HP in water and litter but significantly lower in sediment, indicating that DCF supplied more carbon to planktonic and litter microbes than in top sediments of streams. Literature comparisons show similar DCF and GPP, both being lower than ER in streams. Finally, we found stream DCF higher than in lentic systems, suggesting that flow and turbulence may accelerate chemosynthesis.

The recalcitrant structures either from substrate or microbial biomass contained in digestates after anaerobic digestion (AD) highly influence digestate valorization. To properly assess the microbial biomass contribution to the digested or-ganic matter (OM), a combination of characterization methods and the use of various substrate types in anaerobic con-tinuous reactors was required. The use of totally biodegradable substrates allowed detecting soluble microbial products via fluorescence spectroscopy at emission wavelengths of 420 and 460 nm while the protein-like signature was enhanced by the whey protein. During reactors operation, a transfer of complex compounds to the dissolved OM from the particulate OM was observed through fluorescence applied on biochemical fractionation. Consequently, the fluorescence complexity index of the dissolved OM increased from 0.59-0.60 to 1.06-1.07, whereas it decreased inversely for the extractable soluble from the particulate OM from 1.16-1.19 to 0.42-0.54. Accordingly, fluorescence regional integration showed differences among reactors based on visual inspection and orthogonal partial latent struc-tures (OPLS) analysis. Similarly, the impact of the substrate type and operation time on the particulate OM was revealed by 13C nuclear magnetic resonance using OPLS, providing a good model (R2X = 0.93 and Q2 = 0.8) with a clear time-trend. A high signal resonated at similar to 30 ppm attributed to CH2-groups in the aliphatic chain of lipid-like struc-ture besides carbohydrates intensities at 60-110 ppm distinguished the reactor fed with whey protein from the other, which was mostly biomass related. Indeed, this latter displayed a higher presence of peptidoglycan (delta H/C: 1.6-2.0/ 20-25 ppm) derived from microbial biomass by 1H -13C heteronuclear single-quantum coherence (HSQC) nuclear magnetic resonance. Interestingly, the sample distribution obtained by non-metric multidimensional scaling of bacte-rial communities resembled the attained using 13C NMR properties, opening new research perspectives. Overall, this study discloses the microbial biomass contribution to digestates composition to improve the OM transformation mech-anism knowledge.

Swedish national parks face a shift, transforming them from spaces where tourism is a sub-interest into spaces where tourism is a primary focus. Through the establishment of new instructive installations, the intention is to make these parks Europe’s most popular nature-based tourism destinations. Such installations construct the non-human world, often depicted as nature, and contribute to shaping human understandings of nature. In this article, I seek to trace, make visible, and problematize how knowledge of nature is put to work and how power operates through these installations, but also how the non-human world is produced visually, and how all of this produces specific ways of seeing it. This is enabled by a discourse analysis with visual ethnographic influences, in which I focus on representations with an emphasis on design, content, and posed rationality. The analysis is designed in a reflexive explorative manner, where the empirical context leads the analytical direction while the research process and its steps are presented systematically. Through this analysis, I arguet hat the national parks are transformed into museological organisations similar to the modernist museum, centred around educating visitors by displaying ‘real nature,’ and that this has implications for how the non-human world is understood. The most prominent of these is that a distance is promoted between the tourists and the non-human world.

Soil moisture is among the most important factors regulating soil biodiversity and functioning. Models forecast changes in the precipitation regime in many areas of the planet, but how these changes will influence soil functioning, and how biotic drivers modulate such effects, is far from being understood. We evaluated the responses of C and N fluxes, and soil microbial properties to different soil water regimes in soils from the main three ecotypes of the worlds largest and most diverse tropical savanna. Further, we explored the direct and indirect effects of changes in the ecotype and soil water regimes on these key soil processes. Soils from the woodland savanna showed a better nutritional status than the other ecotypes, as well as higher potential N cycling rates, N2O emissions, and soil bacterial abundance but lower bacterial richness, whereas potential CO2 emissions and CH4 uptake peaked in the intermediate savanna. The ecotype also modulated the effects of changes in the soil water regime on nutrient cycling, greenhouse gas fluxes, and soil bacterial properties, with more intense responses in the intermediate savanna. Further, we highlight the existence of multiple contrasting direct and indirect (via soil microbes and abiotic properties) effects of an intensification of the precipitation regime on soil C- and N-related processes. Our results confirm that ecotype is a fundamental driver of soil properties and functioning in the Cerrado and that it can determine the responses of key soil processes to changes in the soil water regime.

Positive and negative electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry and H-1 NMR revealed major compositional and structural changes of dissolved organic matter (DOM) after mixing two sets of river waters in Amazon confluences: the Solimoes and Negro Rivers (S + N) and the Amazon and Tapajo s Rivers (A + T). We also studied the effects of water mixing ratios and incubation time on the composition and structure of DOM molecules. NMR spectra demonstrated large-scale structural transformations in the case of S + N mixing, with gain of pure and functionalized aliphatic units and loss of all other structures after 1d incubation. A + T mixing resulted in comparatively minor structural alterations, with a major gain of small aliphatic biomolecular binding motifs. Remarkably, structural alterations from mixing to 1d incubation were in essence reversed from 1d to 5d incubation for both S + N and A + T mixing experiments. Heterotrophic bacterial production (HBP) in endmembers S, N, and S + N mixtures remained near 0.03 mu gC L-1 h(-1), whereas HBP in A, T, and A + T were about five times higher. High rates of dark carbon fixation took place at S + N mixing in particular. In-depth biogeochemical characterization revealed major distinctions between DOM biogeochemical changes and temporal evolution at these key confluence sites within the Amazon basin.

While mineral resource extraction is a contested land-use under increased societal scrutiny, it is tremendously important for clean energy transition and societal economic development. Despite increased demand, access to mineral resources is, however, subject to different stakeholder interests often reflected in competing forms of land-use and institutional complexity of two policy streams of minerals and land use planning. During the last decade public policy responses in Europe introduced new instruments such as protection of minerals deposits or valorisation schemes for minerals development, both aiming to link or integrate these two policy streams. While policy studies focus on the mineral and geological background, they lack the contextualisation in the broader (land-) policy and governance discourse. This article closes this gap and contributes to the interface between mineral resources, land policy and spatial planning. It provides insights into 1) what policy instruments are assembled to policy mixes for integrating minerals and land use planning policy, and (ii) in how far these instruments are fit for purpose in the respective land-use planning system. In our analysis we portray the diversity of policy instruments to better integrate policy domains of mineral and LUP, but are only deployed in a 13 European countries. The instruments are assembled to policy mixes combining regulatory, strategies and guidelines, as well as information-based or voluntary instruments with horizontal policy integration representing on average high degrees of integration compared to vertical integration. Considering diversity of European planning systems and different context of mineral resource challenges, we conclude that it is the "contextual match" of what (instruments) works where (land use planning system) that matters. In our research we clearly indicate this contextual match on two levels: First a planning system and decision-making match for vertical integration, and, second, a policy cycle match for horizontal integration, where minerals or LUP topics/issues, respectively, are considered in preparation or design stage of land-use plans, zoning documents or mineral planning documents. For policy decision-makers the array of identified instruments provides solutions fitting to different socio-spatial contexts of mineral and Land use planning policy as well as different planning systems.

The pH-dependent soil-water partitioning of six perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) of environmental concern (PFOA, PFDA, PFUnDA, PFHxS, PFOS and FOSA), was investigated for 11 temperate mineral soils and related to soil properties such as organic carbon content (0.2-3%), concentrations of Fe and Al (hydr)oxides, and texture. PFAS sorption was positively related to the perfluorocarbon chain length of the molecule, and inversely related to solution pH for all substances. The negative slope between log Kd and pH became steeper with increasing perfluorocarbon chain length of the PFAS (r2 = 0.75, p <= 0.05). Organic carbon (OC) alone was a poor predictor of the partitioning for all PFASs, except for FOSA (r2 = 0.71), and the OC-normalized PFAS partitioning, as derived from organic soil materials, underestimated PFAS sorption to the soils. Multiple linear regression suggested sorption contributions (p <= 0.05) from OC for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and FOSA, and Fe/Al (hydr) oxides for PFOS, FOSA, and perfluorodecanoate (PFDA). FOSA was the only substance under study for which there was a statistically significant correlation between its binding and soil texture (silt + clay). To predict PFAS sorption, the surface net charge of the soil organic matter fraction of all soils was calculated using the Stockholm Humic Model. When calibrated against charge-dependent PFAS sorption to a peat (Oe) material, the derived model significantly underestimated the measured Kd values for 10 out of 11 soils. To conclude, additional

This study aims to identify effective engagement tools and strategies that may strengthen student learning processes with a long-term impact. The context of learning plays an active role in student performance and needs to be carefully considered when designing collaborative learning environments. In the framework of a CDIO course entitled Project Course in Applied Physics (12 ECTS), master’s students in applied physics, electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, material science and nanotechnology work in groups of four to seven people for realizing their own project idea given three broad requirements: (i) use gas sensors, (ii) manage a certain maximum budget to purchase components, and (iii) build a working prototypefor any indoor air quality monitoring application of interest for them and their customer. Groupsare generally multicultural and multidisciplinary. Qualified supervision and skills training activities are adapted to facilitate the students’ progress and guarantee the success of their project work. Based on observations, feedback, and results over a five-year period, this approach appears more engaging and inspiring for both students and teachers compared to more defined projects. Encouraging the students to conceive their own original ideas, involving them in the co-creation of the learning process, and building knowledge, understanding, and skills through a variety of engaging experiences, helps their motivation, interest, active participation, and creativity with a direct impact on the quality of their learning. As an example of successful project work, here we report on two groups of students at Linköping University, Sweden, who have recently designed, developed, and tested an innovative sensor system prototype for smart monitoring of gas and particle emissions from cooking activities. The project course has received 5.0/5.0 as an overall students’ evaluation.

Trees in agroforestry parklands influence crops both through competitive and facilitative mechanism, but the effects are challenging to disentangle due to the complexity of the system with high variability in tree cover structure and species diversity and crop combinations. Focusing on a landscape in central Burkina Faso domi- nated by Vitellaria paradoxa and Parkia biglobosa, this paper examines how tree cover influences crop yield at landscape scale using satellite data and spatial statistics. Our analysis is based on data from 2017 to 2018 with differences in rainfall to assess the stability in identified relationships. Our findings showed that tree canopy cover and tree density inside the fields tended to decrease crop yield because of competition, but also that these variables when considering the surrounding landscape exerted an opposite effect because of their buffering ef- fects. The explanatory variables representing soil properties did have limited effects on crop yield in this study. These patterns were consistent during the two years of monitoring. Overall, our results suggest that farmers in this area might manage the tree cover in a way that optimizes sustainable yields as canopy cover and tree density in most parklands is below the limits identified here where competition outweight the facilitative effects. 

Potentially harmful disinfection by-products (DBPs) are formed upon drinking water treatment when disinfectantsreact with organic matter in the water. Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) provides information on the compositions of individual DBPs in the unknown, toxicologically relevantfraction, comprising non-volatile, high-molecular weight DBPs. This review evaluates current applications of FTICR-MS for DBP analysis to assist improved analysis with this technique. Four methodological aspects are infocus, 1) The use of quenching agents, 2) The choice of extraction method 3) The choice of ionization techniques/modes, and 4) Data processing including DBP formula verification and interpretation. Quenching can lead todecomposition or adduct formation and needs to be further evaluated or avoided. There is a large potential toexpand FT-ICR-MS DBP analysis by applying different SPE sorbents and ionization techniques, and improvedsystematic verification procedures are important to ensure reliable non-target analysis.

Societies have always been occupied with securing food supply and ensure environmental and human health. Scientific knowledge and technical level have, together with habitat and management patterns, shaped sanitation arrangements and recycling of resources. Because it is the same urban problems that are addressed by societies in different historical contexts, a longitudinal study may allow for novel ways to conjure food security and sanitation management issues in the present century.

We trace the historical transition over two centuries away from a circular economy to a more linear one in two Swedish cities, the capital Stockholm and the industrial city Norrköping, and show that big but rather slow changes occurred more or less constantly in these two urban settings. The driving forces have changed from only improving local conditions of sanitation and food production over to global and regional driving forces in this century affecting what local communities can or could do. The ongoing globalization positions the subjects of environmental and human health, recycling and food security in a new global perspective, where climate change and global resource boundaries will play a central role. We cannot continue to rely on trade that causes rainforest destruction elsewhere or harmful chemical consumer products that lead to loss of biodiversity and human health risks.

We need to put urban sanitation and food issues into this wider perspective with available remedial measures such as dietary changes, food waste reduction, soil less food production and building of new circular infrastructure. All urban areas in the world, including Stockholm and Norrköping in Sweden, need to adopt new strategies that again engage residents as well as public sectors and industry, including agriculture.

The Paris Agreement places states' nationally determined contributions (NDCs) at the center of global climate politics. While previous research on the NDC has provided important suggestions for enhanced legitimacy and effectiveness of global climate governance, I examine the NDC not in terms of its content, but as an instrument for governing climate conduct in the post-Paris regime. By analyzing state submissions to post-Paris NDC negotiations, I identify five functions of the NDC: Progress Tracker, Trust-Builder, Influencer, Differentiator, and Gatekeeper. While the first three functions are informed by a techno-managerial rationality that posits effective climate action as a project of increased information-sharing, the last two highlight underlying political struggles of responsibility and fairness which are not necessearily solvable through intensified collaboration. I argue that these diverging views on the function of the NDC will become increasingly prominent as we move toward the first round of the global stocktake in 2023. 

Policy coherence is crucial in the 2030 Agenda's transformative ambitions and heralded as of paramount importance to ensure the successful implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and climate policy targets. Despite political efforts to achieve policy coherence, apparent trade-offs and goal conflicts have emerged – even in a proclaimed ‘front-runner’ country like Sweden. This paper examines the role of ideas in proposing and legitimising policy options and achieving policy coherence in the light of the Swedish recovery debate in 2020 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Ideas of a green economic recovery put forward in the public debate are examined through thematic text and frame analysis. We show that ideas of a green transition, boosted by economic recovery spending, draw on a synergistic frame in combining social, environmental, and economic policy options, carrying a potential for coherency. However, the absence of a discussion on power, as in who stands to gain what under which circumstances, coupled with an inherent understanding of a temporal hierarchy of policy priorities does not only impact the ability to design coherent policies but may have considerable impacts on the prospects of achieving sustainability transformations.

Local generation of renewable energy in energy communities has long been around, but has recently experienced an upswing. This upswing is partly due to the EU Clean Energy Package (CEP), where energy communities are introduced juridically as formal actors. Within this policy package, various values are attributed to local energy communities, particularly emphasising broadened citizen participation. Also in academic contexts, energy communities are assigned an important role for a just energy transition. Considering this increasing importance and policy prevalence, it is relevant to explore what types of energy communities exist and are emerging in light of the CEP, and which values these correspond with. We do so by exploring how Swedish solar energy communities are configured and what values they foreground, through the analytical lens of problematizations. Exploring how different configurations entail particular problematizations elucidates how certain values are constructed as relevant, possibly to the detriment of other possible values, thus deepening our understanding of solar energy communities' potential contribution to a just energy transition. We discern a pattern in that particular values related to energy system optimisation are foregrounded, rather than other values such as democratisation, indicating the existence of a broader hegemony that shapes configurations of Swedish solar energy communities.   

Highergas transfer velocities for CO2 than CH4 inlakes challenge previous results and commonly made assumptionsand highlight the importance of gas-specific transport in aquaticgreenhouse gas exchange. Large greenhousegas emissions occur via the release of carbondioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from the surfacelayer of lakes. Such emissions are modeled from the air-watergas concentration gradient and the gas transfer velocity (k). The links between k and the physicalproperties of the gas and water have led to the development of methodsto convert k between gases through Schmidt numbernormalization. However, recent observations have found that such normalizationof apparent k estimates from field measurements canyield different results for CH4 and CO2. Weestimated k for CO2 and CH4 from measurements of concentration gradients and fluxes in fourcontrasting lakes and found consistently higher (on an average 1.7times) normalized apparent k values for CO2 than CH4. From these results, we infer that several gas-specificfactors, including chemical and biological processes within the watersurface microlayer, can influence apparent k estimates.We highlight the importance of accurately measuring relevant air-watergas concentration gradients and considering gas-specific processeswhen estimating k.

In this work we present a methodology for the localized growth of nanowires on prespecified areas of micro -hotplates that allows to independently adjust the devices resistance and its response to the gas. This is achieved through the fabrication stripes containing the nanowires, with or without the presence of a gap in the stripe, giving rise that the nanowires bridge the current. The methodology is demonstrated growing SnO2 nanowire-based chemoresistors and the fabricated sensors have been characterized against CO and NO2. The results show the capability of tailoring nanowire stripe sizes from 1 to 100 mu m, including empty areas of the same sizes along the sensing material, and a response increase by a factor of up to 500. We attribute the response enhancement to the absence of nucleation seeds in the gap area, where only arching nanowires can allow the current to flow between electrodes. In this way, the current flow along the bridge of nanowires is restricted principally to the surface conduction, which is controlled by the interaction of the nanowires with gases.

The rising unpredictability in the food supply chain in many parts of the world is related to soil loss and poor agricultural output. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), widely used for estimating soil loss, was applied in the western mid-hills in Nepal, with steep slopes and fragile geology. This region is at high risk for rapid soil erosion and mass wasting. To estimate soil loss, this study utilized the RUSLE model with experimental erosion plots in the Aadhikhola and Tinahukhola watersheds, capturing real-time erosion in the field. The annual soil loss for the Aadhikhola watershed is estimated at ∼41.4 tons ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. In contrast, in the Tinahukhola watershed, soil loss is low (∼24.1 tons ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). Although annual rainfall showed an increasing trend in both watersheds, the change in soil loss was statistically insignificant. The high erosion rates from the experimental plots in both watersheds support the model outputs. Results from the experimental plots recorded the rate of soil erosion for different land use as: irrigated agricultural land > rainfed agricultural land > forests. The trends highlight the role of human activities in enhancing soil erosion in these mountainous terrains in terms of medium to long-term perspectives. Therefore, sustainable agriculture practices in these terrains must investigate alternate ways to decrease soil erosion to support people's livelihoods.

Perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) are widely distributed in the oceans which are their largest global reservoir, but knowledge is limited about their vertical distribution and fate. This study measured the concentrations of PFAAs (perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) with 6 to 11 carbons and perfluoroalkanesulfonic acids (PFSAs) with 6 and 8 carbons) in the surface and deep ocean. Seawater depth profiles from the surface to a 5000 m depth at 28 sampling stations were collected in the Atlantic Ocean from similar to 50 degrees N to similar to 50 degrees S. The results demonstrated PFAA input from the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel. Elevated PFAA concentrations were observed at the eastern edge of the Northern Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, suggesting that persistent contaminants may accumulate in ocean gyres. The median sigma PFAA surface concentration in the Northern Hemisphere (n = 17) was 105 pg L-1, while for the Southern Hemisphere (n = 11) it was 28 pg L-1. Generally, PFAA concentrations decreased with increasing distance to the coast and increasing depth. The C6-C9 PFCAs and C6 and C8 PFSAs dominated in surface waters, while longer-chain PFAAs (C10-C11 PFCAs) peaked at intermediate depths (500-1500 m). This profile may be explained by stronger sedimentation of longer-chain PFAAs, as they sorb more strongly to particulate organic matter.

During the formulation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, many promoted policy coherence as a key tool to ensure achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a way that “leaves no one behind.” Their argument assumed that coherent policymaking contributes to more effective policies and supports over-arching efforts to reduce inequality. As the 2030 Agenda reaches the halfway point, however, countries are falling short on many SDGs, particularly SDG 10 (reduce inequality). This study revisits the basic assumptions about policy coherence underpinning the SDGs. We systematically screened the peer-reviewed literature to identify 40 studies that provide evidence about whether coherent policymaking contributes to more effective outcomes and helps to reduce inequality. We find that coherent policymaking did not help reduce inequality in a majority of cases and made it worse in several. Our findings challenge the narrative that coherence is a necessary pre-condition for progress on the SDGs for all people.

Extensive glacial lakes dammed in the Scandinavian Mountains during the retreat of the last Scandinavian Ice Sheet were first hypothesised over a century ago. Here, using high-resolution LiDAR, we report >4500 relict shorelines, deltas and palaeo-channels related to ice-dammed lakes over a -30 000 km2 area of central Jaeuromtland, west-central Sweden. Shorelines occur as flights on the valley sides, a consequence of sequential lowering of palaeo-lake levels during ice margin retreat and lower threshold outlets becoming ice-free. Based on the extent and elevation of shorelines, we identify requisite lake-damming ice-margin positions and lake drainage outlets, and we reconstruct the coupled evolution of ice-dammed lakes and the retreating ice margin. Beginning as a series of smaller ice-dammed lakes along the Swedish-Norwegian border, draining westward across the present-day water divide and into the Atlantic Ocean, the lakes successively coalesced during eastward ice margin retreat to form water bodies covering 1000s of km2 with 10s of km-long calving margins. Ultimately, the lake system coalesced into a single lake: the Central Jaeuromtland Ice Lake, which exceeded 3500 km2 in area and 360 km3 in volume. Eventually, the damming ice-margin split in two, resulting in a large (-200 km2) catastrophic glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) that reversed the drainage of the entire lake system from the west to an eastern outlet draining to the Baltic basin. We present new radiocarbon ages for one lake drainage event prior to the eastward outburst flood and, together with previously published deglacial ages and local varve records, we suggest that the region was possibly deglaciated within just 350 years, sometime between 10.5 and 9.2 cal ka BP. We tentatively correlate the penultimate drainage of the Central Jaeuromtland Ice Lake to the zero-varve of the Swedish Time Scale, a drainage varve at Doeuroviken, eastern Jaeuromtland, raising the tantalising prospect of using the evolution of the ice-dammed lake system to tie the varve-based Swedish Time Scale to the radiocarbon timescale with a new programme of radiocarbon dating in central Jaeuromtland. & COPY; 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Inland waters are important emitters of the greenhouse gasses (GHGs) carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) to the atmosphere. In the framework of the 2nd phase of the REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP-2) initiative, we review the state of the art in estimating inland water GHG budgets at global scale, which has substantially advanced since the first phase of RECCAP nearly 10 years ago. The development of increasingly sophisticated upscaling techniques, including statistical prediction and process-based models, allows for spatially explicit estimates that are needed for regionalized assessments of continental GHG budgets such as those established for RECCAP. A few recent estimates also resolve the seasonal and/or interannual variability in inland water GHG emissions. Nonetheless, the global-scale assessment of inland water emissions remains challenging because of limited spatial and temporal coverage of observations and persisting uncertainties in the abundance and distribution of inland water surface areas. To decrease these uncertainties, more empirical work on the contributions of hot-spots and hot-moments to overall inland water GHG emissions is particularly needed.

Stockholms stad står i begrepp att uppdatera stadens miljöprogram, klimathandlingsplan och klimatbudget. I revideringen ska hänsyn tas till nya vetenskapliga rön om vad som krävs för att begränsa den globala upphettningen till 1,5°C samt till vad som anses rättvist utifrån stadens historiska utsläpp. Denna rapport bidrar med underlag för bedömningar av vad som kan anses vara Stockholms stads rättvisa bidrag till det globala klimatarbetet till år 2030. Syftet studeras med utgångspunkt i de senaste vetenskapliga rönen kring utsläppsbudgetar och klimaträttvisa samt erfarenheter från jämförbara städer.

Världens länder är enade i en strävan efter att begränsa den globala uppvärmningen till 1,5°C år 2100. Anledningen är enkel, en global uppvärmning som överstiger 1,5°C anses få svåröverblickbara konsekvenser, inte minst för fattiga och sårbara befolkningar, samt öka risken för att utlösa irreversibla återkopplingsmekanismer i klimatsystemet som leder till en kraftigt förstärkt klimatuppvärmning.

I rapportens första kapitel presenteras en översikt av det aktuella forskningsläget kring det förbrukade och kvarvarande utsläppsutrymmet för att begränsa upphettningen till 1,5°C. Även om osäkerheterna är stora är slutsatsen att det kvarvarande utsläppsutrymmet är begränsat mycket robust. För att ha en 67-procentig chans att begränsa ökningen av jordens medeltemperatur till 1,5°C högre än under förindustriell tid kan mänskligheten släppa ut cirka 400 miljarder ton koldioxid, förutsatt att utsläppen av andra viktiga växthusgaser som metan och lustgas kraftigt begränsas. Med utsläpp av koldioxid på 2020 års nivå är detta utsläppsutrymme slut runt år 2030.

Den globala, kollektiva ansträngning som behövs för att förhindra farlig mänsklig påverkan på klimatsystemet är oerhört utmanande. Målet om att begränsa uppvärmningen till 1,5°C skapar rambetingelser för världssamfundets kollektiva klimatarbete men besvarar inte frågan om ansvarsfördelning för att nå målet. Parisavtalet åberopar Klimatkonventionens svårtolkade princip om gemensamt men differentierat ansvar och uppmanar länderna att beskriva hur principen väglett ambitionsnivån i deras bidrag till det globala klimatarbetet. Eftersom Sverige omfattas av EU:s gemensamma åtagande gentemot FN är det inte möjligt för Stockholms stad att luta sig mot hur Sveriges regering vägletts av principen. Rapportens andra kapitel beskriver hur Klimatkonventionens rättviseprincip har tolkats i vetenskaplig litteratur, vilket sammanfattas i en lista med exempel på viktiga indikatorer för att beräkna ett ansvarsfullt och rättvist bidrag till det globala klimatarbetet. Framförallt behöver beslut fattas kring vilken typ av fördelningsmekanism som ska ligga till grund för ansvarstagande, utifrån: 1) hävdvunna rättigheter (grandfathering), 2) historiskt ansvar (förorenaren betalar), 3) förmånstagarens betalningsansvar, 4) allas lika rätt till utsläppsutrymme och 5) kapacitet att agera. Inom ramarna för dessa fördelningsmekanismer krävs en rad detaljerade beslut. Om exempelvis historiskt ansvar ska tillämpas för att fastställa ett klimatmål krävs att beslut bland annat fattas om ansvar ska stå i proportion till historiska utsläpp, hur långt bakåt i tiden ansvaret ska sträcka sig, vilka datakällor som ska användas för att beräkna ansvar samt vilken hänsyn som ska tas till ickelinjära samband i klimatsystemet. Utöver val av fördelningsmekanism(er) – och beslut kring de med mekanismerna associerade valen – krävs också en rad beslut om systemgränser för ansvarstagande, exempelvis kring hur osäkerheter i klimatvetenskapen ska hanteras och hur stort utrymme som får ges till att kompensera utsläpp av växthusgaser till atmosfären med återtag av koldioxid från atmosfären. Indikatorerna kan användas för att bygga olika modeller för en rättvis fördelning av utsläppsbudgeten för 1,5°C.

I det tredje kapitlet sammanställs hur klimatmål och klimatplaner i andra städer förhåller sig till klimaträttvisa. Denna del av rapporten är inriktad på en jämförelse av resonemang kring klimaträttvisa i Oslos och Göteborgs klimatplaner, det vill säga nordiska städer med liknande förutsättningar att agera som Stockholm. I båda fallen har städerna en högre klimatambition än nationellt. I exempelvis Göteborg ska utsläppen minska med 80 % till 2030 jämfört med 1990 i både den handlande och icke handlande sektorn, vilket kan jämföras med Sveriges nationella mål att minska utsläppen med minst 85 % till 2045 jämfört med 1990 och med 63 % i den icke handlande sektorn till 2030, också det jämfört med 1990. I Göteborg görs också bedömningen att utsläppsminskningstakten i staden bör överträffa den genomsnittliga minskningstakten som krävs globalt för att begränsa uppvärmningen till 1,5°C, annars kan Göteborg inte anses leva upp till Parisavtalet. Att Göteborg antagit mycket ambitiösa klimatmål för 2030 jämfört med Sverige och EU är tydligt, men vilka rättviseprinciper och fördelningsmekanismer som eventuellt informerat denna ambitionsnivå är otydligt. Oslos klimatplaner, som likt Göteborgs är betydligt mer ambitiösa än Norges nationella mål och med EU avtalade åtagande, präglas av likartad otydlighet i resonemang gällande klimaträttvisa.

Rapportens fjärde kapitel beskriver tre scenarion baserade på genomgången av litteratur kring hur Klimatkonventionens rättviseprincip kan tolkas och omsättas i praktiken. Om beräkningarna baseras på den totala utsläppsbudgeten för mänskligheten (från år 1850 och framåt) gäller det i samtliga fall att Sveriges och Stockholms utsläppsutrymme för längesedan är slut och att det finns en stor utsläppskuld. För att utsläppsutrymmet ska vara praktiskt möjligt att basera klimatpolitik på används det globala kvarvarande utsläppsutrymmet för att begränsa upphettningen till 1,5°C, specificerat ovan, för att konstruera scenarion. Det första scenariot använder fördelningsmekanismen förmånstagarens ansvar och det andra använder principen allas lika rätt till utsläpp. I scenariot baserat på förmånstagarens ansvar tilldelas Stockholm en utsläppskvot på mellan 10,8 och 12,0 miljoner ton koldioxid om principen baseras på ackumulerad BNP, eller mellan 6,75 och 6,92 miljoner ton koldioxid om beräkningarna baseras på Världsbankens (2021) uppskattning av totalt välstånd. I scenariot baserat på allas lika rätt till utsläpp tilldelas Stockholm en utsläppskvot på cirka 45 miljoner ton koldioxid. Det tredje scenariot baseras på kapacitet att agera och utgår istället från grunden, snarare än att på principbasis fördela ett globalt utsläppsutrymme. Tillvägagångssättet utgår från politiska ambitioner och tekniska möjligheter att minska utsläpp i kombination med att identifiera de utsläpp som kommer vara svåra att minska eller helt fasa ut. Denna metod står i skarp kontrast till grandfathering-principen, där inlåsningsmekanismer antas begränsa förmågan att agera, och tar i stället en framåtsyftande ansats och ser kapacitet som en möjlighet att agera. I detta scenario tilldelas Stockholm ett utsläppsutrymme på cirka 13 miljoner ton koldioxidekvivalenter i perioden 2020–2040.

Därefter följer ett kort kapitel med rekommendationer till Stockholms stad. Rekommendationerna baseras i sin tur på de slutsatser som dras i rapporten, vilka presenteras i rapportens sista kapitel. Fem rekommendationerna ges, baserade på förförståelsen att Stockholms stad, i sitt klimatarbete, vill ligga i linje med Parisavtalet:

1. Klimaträttvisa ska vägleda fördelningen av klimatansvar. Ett rättviseperspektiv bör därför genomsyra beslut om Stockholms stads klimatmål.
2. I avsaknad av politisk och vetenskaplig samstämmighet kring hur klimaträttvisa ska tolkas och omsättas i praktiken kan och bör Stockholms stad fatta egna beslut om hur rättviseperspektivet ska operationaliseras.
3. I enlighet med Parisavtalets transparensramverk bör Stockholms stad redovisa hur klimaträttvisa operationaliserats med hänsyn taget till de omständigheter som präglar Stockholms förutsättningar att agera.
4. I ansvarsutkrävande syfte bör Stockholms stad dessutom tydligt kommunicera geografiska, sektoriella och övriga systemgränser för ansvarstagandet.
5. Även om minskning av växthusgasutsläpp är prioriterat bör Stockholms stad också verka för att främja återtag av koldioxid från atmosfären inom Stockholms kommun, bland annat för att kompensera för utsläpp inom kommunen som är svåra att reducera och för att bidra till metod- och teknikutveckling i det globala klimatarbetet.

När allt fler länder ställer upp allt djärvare klimatmål har olika former av klimatkompensation kommit i fokus. Vad är för- och nackdelarna med klimatkompensation, kan det överhuvudtaget användas som en tillförlitlig metod för att minska klimatutsläppen? Madelene Ostwald skriver.

Coastal eutrophication and urban flooding are increasingly important components of global change. Although increased seawater renewal by barrier openings and channelizing are common mitigation measures in coastal lagoons worldwide, their effects on these ecosystems are not fully understood. Here, we evaluated the re-lationships between human interventions in the watershed, artificial connections to the sea, and the sediment burial rates in an urban coastal lagoon (Maric & PRIME;a lagoon, Southeastern Brazil). Sediment accretion along with nutrient and carbon burial rates were determined in two sediment cores representing the past-120 years (210Pb dating) and associated with anthropogenic changes as indicated by historical records and geoinformation ana-lyses. Lagoon infilling and eutrophication, expressed by the average sediment accretion, TP, TN, and OC burial rates, respectively, increased-9-18, 13-15, 11-14 and 11-12-fold from the earliest (<1950) to the most recent (2000-2017) period. These multi-proxy records confirm mechanistic links between deforestation, urbanization, and untreated sewage discharges. In addition, our findings reveal artificial connections to the sea may contribute to lagoonal eutrophication and infilling, particularly when not integrated with sewage treatment and forest conservation or reforestation in the watershed. Therefore, increased seawater renewal by physical interventions commonly considered as mitigation measures may in contrast cause severe degradation in coastal lagoons, causing harmful consequences that should be not neglected when implementing management practices.

Methane (CH4) emissions (FCH4) from northern freshwater lakes are not only significant but also highly variable in time and one driver variable suggested to be important is precipitation. Rain can have various, potentially large effects on FCH4 across multiple time frames, and verifying the impact of rain on lake FCH4 is key to understand both contemporary flux regulation, and to predict future FCH4 related to possible changes in frequency and intensity of rainfall from climate change. The main objective of this study was to assess the short-term impact of typically occurring rain events with different intensity on FCH4 from various lake types located in hemiboreal, boreal, and subarctic Sweden. In spite of high time resolution automated flux measurements across different depth zones and covering numerous commonly types of rain events in northern areas, in general, no strong impact on FCH4 during and within 24 h after the rainfall could be observed. Only in deeper lake areas and during longer rain events FCH4 was weakly related to rain (R2 = 0.29, p < 0.05), where a minor FCH4 decrease during the rain was identified, suggesting that direct rainwater input, during greater rainfall, may decrease FCH4 by dilution of surface water CH4. Overall, this study indicates that typical rain events in the studied regions have minor direct short-term effects on FCH4 from northern lakes and do not enhance FCH4 from shallow and deeper parts of lakes during and up to 24-h after the rainfall. Instead, other factors such as wind speed, water temperature and pressure changes were more strongly correlated with lake FCH4.

Mapping wetland types in northern-latitude regions with Earth Observation (EO) data is important for several practical and scientific applications, but at the same time challenging due to the variability and dynamic nature in wetland features introduced by differences in geophysical conditions. The objective of this study was to better understand the ability of Sentinel-1 radar data, Sentinel-2 optical data and terrain derivatives derived from Copernicus digital elevation model to distinguish three main peatland types, two upland classes, and surface water, in five contrasting landscapes located in the northern parts of Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia. The study also investigated the potential benefits for classification accuracy of using regional classification models constructed from region-specific training data compared to a global classification model based on pooled reference data from all five sites. Overall, the results show high promise for classifying peatland types and the three other land cover classes using the fusion approach that combined all three EO data sources (Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and terrain derivatives). Overall accuracy for the individual sites ranged between 79.7% and 90.3%. Class specific accuracies for the peatland types were also high overall but differed between the five sites as well as between the three classes bog, fen and swamp. A key finding is that regional classification models consistently outperformed the global classification model by producing significantly higher classification accuracies for all five sites. This suggests for progress in identifying effective approaches for continental scale peatland mapping to improve scaling of for example, hydrological- and greenhouse gas-related processes in Earth system models.

A recent article in this journal (Jackson 2021) validly emphasized that debates about the Anthropocene need to recognize a diverse range of perspectives, worldviews, and forms of knowledge. In doing so, however, the author mischaracterized scholarship on earth system governance as being antithetical to a critical and pluralistic stance on the Anthropocene. In this commentary we address key concerns about the article: selective and misleading quotations regarding the earth system governance literatures diversity; unwarranted insinuations that juxtapose the implications of this literature with those of slavery and holocausts; and neglect of the breadth and diversity of scholarship on earth system governance. We underscore the need for scholarly debates on the Anthropocene to be informed by a balanced and rigorous assessment of existing scholarship, and for a constructive dialogue between global and locally situated ways of understanding the earth.

The worlds population is estimated to reach 11 billion in this century, with some 8.5 billion living in urban areas. Cities become unprecedented hot spots of demand for virgin water and food, as well as producers of large volumes of valuable waste. The recycling of urban nutrient-rich liquid and solid waste as fertilizer in agriculture will thus be of benefit to both sectors. The analysis suggests that recycling has the potential to become the ultimate sink for organic waste and wastewater, while simultaneously securing the supply of food and fertilizers, and reducing both local and global environmental impacts. Presently, harmful chemical substances from various consumer products in our chemical society are disposed of in urban waste flows and hamper recovery and reuse. A combination of counter measures such as not mixing nutrient-rich blackwater with grey water polluted with chemical compounds, are crucial. The sludge from the small volume of blackwater can contribute enough fertilizers to secure global food supplies by the year 2100. The voluminous grey water will contain few pathogenic microorganisms and can be treated for non-potable reuse. Three urban arrangements are analysed: Singapore (entire city), Helsingborg in Sweden (city district), and Bangalore in India (eco-house).

For a long time, water hyacinth has been considered a very stubborn and troublesome weed. However, research has shown that it can be used to remove many pollutants from water. Among the different pollutants, potentially toxic elements (PTE) or their ions have been found to be very toxic for humans, animals, and plants. Among the many conventional methods for removing PTE from wastewaters, phytoremediation has several advantages. This method is highly eco-friendly, cost-effective, and can remove a wide range of metal pollutants and organic pollutants. Both, living and non-living water hyacinth plants, can be used for remediation - either entirely or their parts. Study on mechanisms and different factors involved in the process would help to effectively use water hyacinth for remediation. This review presents different studies conducted in the past thirty years for the removal of PTEs. Detailed analysis of the work done in this field showed that in spite of the main advantages provided by the plant, not much has been done to increase the efficiency of the remediation process and for reusing the water hyacinth biomass for other applications after desorption of the PTE. Hence, the section on scope for future work highlights these prospective ideas. Novelty statement: Water hyacinth, which is a very stubborn weed and has a negative impact on the environment, can be constructively used to remove potentially toxic elements (PTEs) along with other pollutants from wastewaters. Different parts of the water hyacinth plant like roots, leaves, and stems or the entire plant can be used. Further, either the live plant or its other forms, such as dried powder, biochar, or activated carbon can be used. This review focuses on different forms of water hyacinth plant used, the advantages and limitations associated with these methods and the scope for future work.

Principles underpinning the 2030 Agenda - indivisibility, integration and universality - can safeguard against inaction or unsustainable practices but have not yet come into effect. We propose measures to strengthen alignment with them as the world gears up to accelerate implementation at the 2023 SDG Summit.