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Reduced dependence on wild-caught fish in favour of crop-based ingredients for feeds has supported aquaculture growth. An analysis of ingredient origins versus feed composition shows that origin must be considered to assess the environmental footprint of feed production.

It has been argued that air temperatures over mountain glaciers are decoupled from surrounding warming, which could slow down melting. Here the authors show that this effect will weaken with future glacier retreat, leading to a recoupling of temperatures from the 2030s onwards.

Planning for the Colorado River is critical to secure water and hydropower for the western US under climate change. This study highlights how different policies may reduce but not eliminate the risk of losing water and energy supply altogether.

How much methane will be emitted from the boreal-Arctic region under climate change is not well constrained. Here the authors show that accounting for distinct wetland and lake classes leads to lower estimates of current methane loss as some classes emit low amounts of methane.

Researchers isolate the protein thought to help migratory birds navigate, and astronomers pinpoint the stars that could view Earth as an exoplanet.

Elevated atmospheric CO₂ has stimulated plant growth, yet the future land carbon sink may be constrained in part by nutrient availability. Here the authors review plant nutrient acquisition strategies and the need for better representation in models to improve predictions of land carbon uptake.

Environmental justice and drinking water in the US: Higher proportions of Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and non-Hispanic Black residents were associated with higher public water arsenic and uranium at the county-level, findings differed by region.

A study showing high-quality container-based sanitation servicing improves the sanitation-related quality of life in informal settlements across Kenya, Peru and South Africa.

How the Quantum Twisting Microscope could give a better ‘picture’ of atom thin layers, and science in Ukraine a year into Russia’s invasion.

This study provides a nuanced understanding of the trade-offs and synergies between carbon sequestration goals and water security, and offers a data–model integrated framework to guide ecosystem restoration strategies under water resource constraints.

Wood used in construction stores carbon and reduces the emissions from steel and cement production. Transformation to timber cities while protecting forest and biodiversity is possible without significant increase in competition for land.

Land use and land cover change has led to more frequent hot, dry summers in parts of the mid-latitudes. Here the authors use an Earth system model to show that regions converted to crops and pastures experience hot, dry summers 2 to 4 times more frequently than they would if native forests had remained.

Coastal cities face a compound threat from relative sea-level rise and land subsidence; however, local land subsidence rates are spatially variable and can be difficult to quantify. Remote interferometric radar observations allow high-resolution estimations of local land subsidence to better inform the future of major coastal cities.

The transition to sustainable diets is challenging for countries that face malnutrition and limited resources. Now a study explores how various dietary transformations in China can improve public health, make food affordable and reduce environmental impacts, while evaluating the feasibility of the diet changes.

Researchers modify drug to prevent kidney damage, and the mystery of the phosphorus at the Milky Way’s edge.

Aridity is expected to increase globally in a warmer world. Research now suggests that this is substantially amplified by land–atmosphere feedbacks associated with the land surface’s response to climate and plant responses to increased atmospheric CO₂.

DNA clues point to how dire wolves went extinct, a look at European science post-Brexit, and the lastest on RNA vaccines.

We reconstruct the spatial distribution and timing of wetland loss through conversion to seven human land uses between 1700 and 2020, elucidating the magnitude and land-use drivers of global wetland losses to improve assessments of wetland loss impacts.

Global runoff is subject to multiple influences with high uncertainties in its projections. The authors show that global runoff is expected to increase mainly due to vegetation and soil moisture responses to rising CO₂ and radiative forcing, rather than through direct effects of climate change.

The Earth may become inhospitable to land mammals in about 250 Myr owing to climate warming and drying associated with the assembly of the next supercontinent, Pangaea-Ultima, according to combined tectonic, climate and mammal habitability modelling.

Speeding up comparisons of behavioural interventions, and what to expect from the James Webb Space Telescope.

The carbon balance in Southeast Asia is highly uncertain. Here, the authors show that land use changes and occurrence of strong El Niño control decadal shifts in the carbon balance of this region.

Access to green space has been a critical, and contentious, issue for neighbourhood inequality and health outcomes. This Analysis looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic interacts with availability of nature for urban residents.

Land use is a key control of insect communities. Here the authors investigate relationships of insect biomass and richness with land use along a climate gradient, finding evidence of urbanisation and agriculture as drivers of decline, and of biomass and species richness not being suitable as mutual surrogates.

Researchers find the genetic mutations that allow some marsupials to soar, and an ultra-accurate clock is put through its paces on the high seas.

The global net land sink is relatively well constrained. However, the responsible drivers and above/below-ground partitioning are highly uncertain. Model issues regarding turnover of individual plant and soil components are responsible.

Efficient statistical emulation of melting land ice under various climate scenarios to 2100 indicates a contribution from melting land ice to sea level increase of at least 13 centimetres sea level equivalent.

Sea-level rise poses a substantial risk to coastal communities and economies, thus accurate predictions are needed to enable planning and adaptation. This Perspective provides an overview of uncertainties in model projections of sea-level rise, and how observations can be used to reduce these.

The sensitivity of the terrestrial biosphere to changes in climate constitutes a feedback mechanism with the potential to accentuate global warming. Process-based modelling experiments now indicate that under a business-as-usual emissions scenario the biosphere on land is expected to be an increasingly positive feedback to anthropogenic climate change, potentially amplifying equilibrium climate sensitivity by 22–27%.

Energy companies must often obtain consent from private landowners for natural gas extraction. This study analyses lease negotiations between these two parties in Ohio, noting disadvantages on the side of the landowner in the process.

An international team of researchers finds high potential for improving climate projections by a more comprehensive treatment of largely ignored Arctic vegetation types, underscoring the importance of Arctic energy exchange measuring stations.

In the 1930s, the US was hit by a severe drought and record-breaking heatwaves in a period known as the Dust Bowl. Here, the authors present model experiments that suggest that warm North Atlantic temperatures and human devegetation played key roles in making these heatwaves particularly strong.

A significant challenge for policies aiming to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation is the avoidance of international carbon leakage. Research now shows, however, that even globally implemented forest conservation schemes could allow another type of carbon leakage through cropland expansion into non-forested areas.

Scientists scramble to understand the devastating Tongan volcano eruption, and modelling how societal changes might alter carbon emissions.

A machine learning approach examines decades of data in the hunt for the proton’s charm, and the latest from the Nature Briefing.

Mangroves and the carbon they store are threatened by deforestation, but the efficacy of policies to protect them is unknown. Here the authors assess changes in mangrove carbon stocks between 1996 and 2016 and show less loss than previous methods estimated, indicating conservation has had a positive effect.

Boucherie et al. apply physics-based models to the arrangement of locations to study how geography shapes human movement. They find an underlying pattern in how people choose to move, independent of geographical layout.

The collapse of tropical forests during the Permian–Triassic Mass Extinction weakened carbon sequestration, sustaining high CO2 and extreme global warmth for millions of years: an example of a runaway feedback in Earth’s climate-carbon system.

There lacks model comparison of global land use change projections. Here the authors explored how different long-term drivers determine land use and food availability projections and they showed that the key determinants population growth and improvements in agricultural efficiency.

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith join us to discuss their book A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

Analysis of soundscape data from 139 globally distributed sites reveals that sounds of biological origin exhibit predictable rhythms depending on location and season, whereas sounds of anthropogenic origin are less predictable. Comparisons between paired urban–rural sites show that urban green spaces are noisier and dominated by sounds of technological origin.

Rapid urbanization affects both local food and ecological systems in Africa. This study integrates the effects of land-use displacement and dietary shifts associated with urbanization in scenarios of future food demand to understand the impact of future urbanization on the African environment.

Literature produced inconsistent findings regarding the links between extreme weather events and climate policy support across regions, populations and events. This global study offers a holistic assessment of these relationships and highlights the role of subjective attribution.

Researchers uncover how grid cells fire to help bats navigate, and a fabric that switches between being stiff and flexible.

Machine-learning algorithms trained on 25,000 geolocated soil samples are used to create high-resolution global maps of mycorrhizal fungi, revealing that less than 10% of their biodiversity hotspots are in protected areas.

The effectiveness of the different policies and policy bundles for food systems transformation to achieve SDGs in China vary widely. Using an integrated modelling framework covering 18 indicators, this study compares the trade-offs and outcomes of efforts focused on dietary transitions, climate change mitigation and ecological conservation, and faster socioeconomic development, ultimately revealing that dietary shifts offer the most benefits.

This Review highlights how terrestrial laser scanning is transforming forest research by enabling highly detailed 3D measurements of trees, supporting applications in forest ecology, carbon monitoring, and biodiversity assessment.

The future of food prices is uncertain yet key for food security and climate mitigation policies. This study estimates future food prices for 136 countries and 11 distinct food groups, showing that future food prices will become less sensitive to agricultural market dynamics and land-based mitigation policies, given the global transition towards more complex and industrial food systems.