Reviews & Analysis

Climate adaptation in African vegetable farming focuses on rural areas with technological options dominating, while urban agriculture and institutional strategies remain underexplored, according to a systematic review of 60 studies.

Heavy metal pollution shapes biodiversity in modern and past ecosystems, malformations and extinctions indicate toxicity, but their role as drivers or artifacts depends on bioavailability, according to a review of published literature on past mass extinction events and case studies.

Substantial environmental lead contamination continues today contributing to an annual global economic loss exceeding $3.4 trillion through contemporary childhood lead exposure, according to a review of lead sources, possible pathways into the environment, and human exposure in the 21st century.

Nutrient fluxes from rivers and groundwater flowing into the ocean are impacted by climate change impacts such as precipitation changes, cryosphere melt, and sea level rise.

Multiple cropping has a significant impact on environmental and socioeconomic outcomes of farming, but is not fully considered in model-based assessments of sustainable agriculture

The in-house editors and external board members of Communications Earth & Environment share their thoughts on their journeys and what the journal and being an editor mean to them.

In celebration of the fifth anniversary of Communications Earth & Environment, editorial board members and internal editors reflect on research topics and articles that have resonated with them and shaped their editorial journey.

Ditches have many overlooked environmental and societal roles, including impact on biodiversity and pollution, and management strategies to enhance their multifunctional landscape-scale benefits are needed, according to a review of physical, biotic, chemical, and human factors.

The dynamic qualities of fact-cycling mineral-associated organic matter depend on chemistry between minerals and organic matter, their interactions, and the destabilizing forces causing decomposition, according to a review of recent studies on mineral-associated organic matter across ecosystems

Global coffee farms now store roughly 481.59 Tg carbon, with more carbon lost from removing existing shade trees than gained by planting new ones into coffee monocultures, which is largely independent of biodiversity outcomes, as revealed by a global meta-analysis.

Spectrally nudged storylines are innovative methods for attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic climate change, which can address the limitations of conventional probabilistic attribution methods by focusing on specific historical events with significant impacts.

Supply disruption, environmental and social impacts, resource depletion, circularity, and substitutability influence the sustainable supply of critical raw materials for water electrolysers and fuel cells, according to a perspective assessing different fuel cells and critical raw materials.

Bioarchaeological isotope data that provide information on the migratory and feeding behaviors of ancient species and their interactions with humans can improve understanding of past ecological and climatic changes and improve predictions of environmental processes.

A compilation and analysis of palaeomagnetic and geologic data highlight the importance of subduction transference processes on terrane convergence in the Tibetan Plateau and the migration of microcontinents from Gondwana to Eurasia in the Mesozoic.

Expanding the definition of the photic zone to include all biological processes driven by celestial light improves researchers’ capability to investigate the impact of changing light levels upon marine organisms.

Warming of +1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is too high for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and even the current climate forcing of +1.2 °C is likely to lead to several meters of sea-level rise, meaning that only a return to +1 °C or lower will avoid extensive loss and damage to coastal populations, according to a synthesis of recent evidence.

Climate change is altering bioaccumulation and biological effects of persistent organic pollutants in marine organisms, impacting toxicity, thermal regulation, and energy usage of exposed organisms with broad implications for ecological health.

Biochar-based catalytic conversion of plastic waste into value-added fuels and advanced oxidation-based upcycling of plastic are practical and promising route for sustainable management of plastic pollution, according to a literature review coupled with machine learning.

Glacial weathering is a significant source of dissolved silicon to coastal waters, supporting diatom growth in polar ecosystems, according to a review of the stable and radioisotope measurements alongside biogeochemical modeling to understand subglacial silica mobilization and its cycling across the land-ocean continuum.

Global assessments of the climate change mitigation potential of biochar diverge, and many rely on a dated analysis, but there is strong evidence for gigaton-scale contribution, concludes a synthesis of 19 studies of biochar mitigation potential.