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Discussions about just transitions and nature-based solutions (NBS) often articulate an essentialist sense of place perspective that emphasises stasis through combinations of belonging, rootedness, continuity, attachment and connections among sites, scales and subjectivities. In response, we demonstrate how a progressive understanding of "senses" of place that embraces fluid place meanings accessible at different temporal and spatial scales enables a new understanding of the interface between structural and emotional transformation of place, as well as rethinking of just urban transitions. We present four transformation modalities that reconsider people-place, people-nature, and people-institutional relations pertinent to environmental justice and use case examples to demonstrate their relevance to NBS planning. We conclude by offering two overarching principles for urban policy, planning, and governance for fostering just transitions through NBS. First, NBS planning needs to pur-posively activate structural and emotional transformations through experimentation to enhance procedural justice. Second, NBS co-design and implementation should consider the dynamic interplay between recognition and distribution justice to engage multiple senses of place.

Voluntary carbon offsets are a rapidly growing market and claims related to offsetting and carbon neutrality are visible in citizens' daily lives. Proponents suggest that carbon offsetting offers a cost-effective way to incentivize climate action while critics discuss offsetting as an opaque and dysfunctional practice. Previous studies have examined citizens' perceptions principally through quantitative data, and especially by economic choice experiments. As voluntary carbon offsetting is unsettled in citizen's everyday lives, we argue that such studies overlook the more subtle ways in which this is happening. To address these ways in detail, we conducted a multi-method analysis of a nationally representative survey (n = 1000) in Finland. The closed questions of the survey were first analysed quantitatively, and the insights then enriched by a qualitative analysis of the open questions. The combined results highlight citizens' views and understandings as uncertain and ambivalent: despite a widespread willingness to address climate change, there is little unreserved support for voluntary carbon offsetting and distrust towards the sector is high. Our study cautions against placing high hopes in individuals' voluntary carbon offsetting as a form of climate action.

There is increased call to demonstrate the benefits of EU Member States' river basin management plans, whose implementation has been delayed largely due to insufficient funding. This paper applies a contingent valuation study to investigate the benefit value of improved ecological status in river basins and the discrepancy between the quality of waters as perceived by river basin residents and as monitored under the Water Framework Directive. Respondents often reported worse quality for their focal water body than the monitored status indicated, a tendency established in a GIS analysis. The likelihood of such divergence increased most with degree of perceived deterioration of surface waters. Observed deterioration in waters, official status of one's focal water body and divergence between two quality measures had implications for welfare estimates. Describing water quality according to ecological criteria and as uniformly as possible would facilitate the use of valuation results in future benefit transfers.

Titanium dioxide, frequently used in commonplace products, is now regularly detected in aquatic environments. Understanding its toxic effects on native biota is essential. However, combined toxicity with commonly occurring pollutants, such as the pharmaceutical diclofenac, may provide more insight into environmental situations. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of titanium dioxide and diclofenac, individually and combined, on the macrophyte Egeria densa. Diclofenac uptake and removal by the macrophyte were assessed. Diclofenac and titanium dioxide were mixed prior to exposure to allow binding, which was assessed. Toxicity of the individual compounds and the combination was evaluated by assaying enzymes as bioindicators of biotransformation and the antioxidative system. Cytosolic glutathione S-transferase and glutathione reductase activities were increased by diclofenac, titanium dioxide, and the combination. Both enzymes’ activities were more significantly elevated by diclofenac and the combination than nanoparticles alone. Microsomal glutathione S-transferase was unaffected by diclofenac exposure but inhibited with titanium dioxide and the mixture. Diclofenac elicited the most significant response. Based on the data, the cytosolic enzymes effectively prevented damage.

Calls for a common environmental education (EE) vision imply imposing certain values as universal. Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge on the extent to which EE reflects universalities versus diverse sociocultural realities. We explored practitioners' perspectives on the purpose of EE by interviewing practitioners in Finland and Madagascar using a theory of change approach. We classified EE goals into eight categories following the framework of Clark et al. (2020). We found signs of universal patterns, with commonalities such as the importance of the cognitive domain and de-emphasis of sociocultural aspects. Yet, differences arise: the connection to nature was central in Finland, whereas economic and bridging strategies were more common in Madagascar. Our results reflect the tradition of EE in post-industrial countries and suggest the influence of the colonial legacy and Western epistemologies in Madagascar. Questions remain about the extent to which those differences are culturally grounded.

Optical resonators are used in spectroscopic measurements of atmospheric trace gases to establish long optical path lengths L with enhanced absorption in compact instruments. In cavity-enhanced broad-band methods, the exact knowledge of both the magnitude of L and its spectral dependency on the wavelength λ is fundamental for the correct retrieval of trace gas concentrations. L(λ) is connected to the spectral mirror reflectivity R(λ), which is often referred to instead. L(λ) is also influenced by other quantities like broad-band absorbers or alignment of the optical resonator. The established calibration techniques to determine L(λ), e.g. introducing gases with known optical properties or measuring the ring-down time, all have limitations: limited spectral resolution, insufficient absolute accuracy and precision, inconvenience for field deployment, or high cost of implementation. Here, we present two new methods that aim to overcome these limitations: (1) the narrow-band cavity ring-down (NB-CRD) method uses cavity ring-down spectroscopy and a tunable filter to retrieve spectrally resolved path lengths L(λ); (2) integrated calibration by means of optical modulation (ICOM) allows the determination of the optical path length at the spectrometer resolution with high accuracy in a relatively simple setup. In a prototype setup we demonstrate the high accuracy and precision of the new approaches. The methods facilitate and improve the determination of L(λ), thereby simplifying the use of cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy.

Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) is known to inactivate various viruses and bacteria, including SARS-CoV-2, and is widely applied especially in medical facilities. This inactivation results from the high photon energies causing molecular bonds to break, but when nonpathogen molecules are affected, unwanted effects may occur. Here, we explored the effect of a commercial high intensity (similar to 2 kW) UVC disinfection device on the composition and concentration of gases and particles in indoor air. We find that the UVC (254 nm) caused dramatic increases in particle number concentrations, and nearly all (similar to 1000) monitored gas phase species also increased. These responses were unsurprising when considering the typical impacts of UVC on atmospheric chemistry. High particle concentrations are associated with adverse health effects, suggesting that the impact of UVGI devices on indoor air quality (IAQ) should be studied in much more detail. The high-intensity device in this study was intended for short durations in unoccupied rooms, but lower-intensity devices for continuous use in occupied rooms are also widely applied. This makes further studies even more urgent, as the potential IAQ effects of these approaches remain largely unexplored.

A new path for rhinoceros (rhino) conservation is needed. Recent data signal the alarming impact of poaching on populations in Africa's rhino stronghold, the state-run Kruger National Park (South Africa), which today supports one quarter the rhinos than a decade ago. We aggregated African rhino population data, highlighting the growing role of private and community rhino custodians, who likely now conserve >50% of Africa's rhinos. Their contribution has been enabled by a supportive policy and economic environment, but this arrangement is becoming more difficult to sustain as costs associated with protecting rhinos skyrocket and revenue-generating options become insufficient. Some privately held rhino populations are small or intensively managed, raising questions about their conservation value. As the role of private and community custodianship becomes increasingly central to the protection of Africa's remaining rhinos, its resilience must be strengthened through implementation of adaptive policies that incentivize rhino conservation. We outline policy pathways to provide an enabling environment for rhino conservation beyond state parks.

This paper provides a behavioural and welfare analysis of an intermediary in biodiversity offset markets. These markets are characterised by high information requirements and transaction costs, threatening economic efficiency and even biodiversity outcomes. Specialised intermediaries facilitate trading by providing information and brokering services. By buying, holding and selling offset credits from storage, the intermediary can decrease both financial and ecological risks in the market. As a drawback, the intermediary may exploit market power upstream or downstream due to ecological features of the offset market. Intermediaries decrease the trading parties’ transaction costs by offering specialised information, reduce uncertainty, and decrease the costs of offsetting by increasing liquidity in the market and offering certain offset credits. When the intermediary has market power, selling and buying prices deviate from the competitive equilibrium. This welfare loss may be lower than the loss from transaction costs and trade ratios in decentralised trade, even in the case of the intermediary having both monopoly and monopsony power. The intermediary is the most useful when trade ratios are high and when the intermediary stores mature credits, which eliminates ecological uncertainty and thereby offers cost savings for developers, and may result in a higher level of biodiversity.

Climate warming is leading to permafrost thaw in northern peatlands, and current predictions suggest that thawing will drive greater surface wetness and an increase in methane emissions. Hydrology largely drives peatland vegetation composition, which is a key element in peatland functioning and thus in carbon dynamics. These processes are expected to change. Peatland carbon accumulation is determined by the balance between plant production and peat decomposition. But both processes are expected to accelerate in northern peatlands due to warming, leading to uncertainty in future peatland carbon budgets. Here, we compile a dataset of vegetation changes and apparent carbon accumulation data reconstructed from 33 peat cores collected from 16 sub-arctic peatlands in Fennoscandia and European Russia. The data cover the past two millennia that has undergone prominent changes in climate and a notable increase in annual temperatures towards present times. We show a pattern where European sub-Arctic peatland microhabitats have undergone a habitat change where currently drier habitats dominated by Sphagnum mosses replaced wetter sedge-dominated vegetation and these new habitats have remained relatively stable over the recent decades. Our results suggest an alternative future pathway where sub-arctic peatlands may at least partly sustain dry vegetation and enhance the carbon sink capacity of northern peatlands.

Diverse and inclusive marine research is paramount to addressing ocean sustainability challenges in the 21st century, as envisioned by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Despite increasing efforts to diversify ocean science, women continue to face barriers at various stages of their career, which inhibits their progression to leadership within academic institutions. In this perspective, we draw on the collective experiences of thirty-four global women leaders, bolstered by a narrative review, to identify practical strategies and actions that will help empower early career women researchers to become the leaders of tomorrow. We propose five strategies: (i) create a more inclusive culture, (ii) ensure early and equitable career development opportunities for women ECRs, (iii) ensure equitable access to funding for women ECRs, (iv) offer mentoring opportunities and, (v) create flexible, family-friendly environments. Transformational, meaningful, and lasting change will only be achieved through commitment and collaborative action across various scales and by multiple stakeholders.

Anomalous peaks in the 137Cs and 241Am records from three lake sediment cores from southern Finland appear to be due to the presence of micron-size hot radioactive particles, almost certainly originating in fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Since the imbedding sediments all post-date 1986 by several decades, it appears that they were initially deposited on the catchments of these lakes and transported to the lakes some years later. The activities of the particles were determined using a sequential splitting process. Two of the particles were found to contain 137Cs with activities of 64 ± 4 mBq and 266 ± 15 mBq respectively. The third contained 241Am with an activity of 17 ± 2 mBq, but no evidence of significant amounts of 137Cs. The delayed input of such particles into the sedimentary records highlights the need for care in using 137Cs or 241Am as chronostratigraphic markers in areas subject to significant levels of contamination from Chernobyl fallout.

Acid sulfate (AS) soils contain sulfidic compounds formed in anaerobic conditions. In aerobic conditions, they will oxidize to sulfuric acid, which commonly lowers the pH to 3 – 4. These soils cover approximately 10,000 km2 in Finland, mainly on the western coast, and over 170,000 km2 globally. Acidity and the metals dissolved from the soil matrix and leached out of the soil are serious threats to aquatic biota. Initially, AS soils were regarded as an exclusively agricultural problem, but since the 1970s nearly all studies of AS soils have been environmentally motivated. Awareness of these soils has also risen in forestry, peat mining, and in engineering projects. Liming and water management are the key methods toward the sustainable use of these soils.

Warning This article contains terms, descriptions, and opinions used for historical context that may be culturally sensitive for some readers. Background Understanding drivers of boreal forest dynamics supports adaptation strategies in the context of climate change. Aims We aimed to understand how burn rates varied since the early 1700s in North American boreal forests. Methods We used 16 fire-history study sites distributed across such forests and investigated variation in burn rates for the historical period spanning 1700–1990. These were benchmarked against recent burn rates estimated for the modern period spanning 1980–2020 using various data sources. Key results Burn rates during the historical period for most sites showed a declining trend, particularly during the early to mid 1900s. Compared to the historical period, the modern period showed less variable and lower burn rates across sites. Mean burn rates during the modern period presented divergent trends among eastern versus northwestern sites, with increasing trends in mean burn rates in most northwestern North American sites. Conclusions The synchronicity of trends suggests that large spatial patterns of atmospheric conditions drove burn rates in addition to regional changes in land use like fire exclusion and suppression. Implications Low burn rates in eastern Canadian boreal forests may continue unless climate change overrides the capacity to suppress fire.

Social-ecological fit has been a popular approach to assessing the connectedness between social and ecological systems in environmental governance. However, the role of projects in social-ecological fit has yet to be explicitly problematized and conceptualized. Given the centrality of projects - i.e. temporally limited organizations that bring various actors into collaboration to pursue clearly defined goals and tasks - in environmental governance, this is a serious shortcoming in the literature. In this paper, we fill this gap by drawing on the hitherto unconnected literatures on projectified environmental governance and social-ecological fit. We then assess the extent to which fit can be achieved in projectified environmental governance. To do this, we develop a novel framework for assessing the vertical and horizontal dimensions of social, spatial, and temporal fit and conduct an empirical study of the European Union’s LIFE Program and environmental projects funded by the program in Estonia. Our results suggest that the spatial and temporal fit of projects is contingent on social fit, i.e., the alignment of interests and needs of project-related actors. Frictions between various levels of decision-making also condition the possibilities of achieving fit horizontally across stakeholder groups and ecological systems as well as of sustaining project results over time. Highlights • Socio-ecological fit is a widely debated topic in environmental governance. • A critical analysis of the role of projects in social-ecological fit is currently lacking. • We explore social-ecological fit of Estonian EU LIFE projects. • The interconnectedness between different forms of fit needs to be addressed. • Pursuing socio-ecological fit is a multi-scale and multi-level effort.

Considerations of justice with regards to climate change adaptation are increasingly called for in the academic literature, but little attention has been paid to the dimensions of justice regarding the development of adaptation policy and instruments used. Thus, there is a gap when it comes to connecting the dimensions of justice to different types of adaptation strategies and plans. Here, we synthesise the findings of previous studies to create an adaptation justice index for the four dimensions of climate justice in the context of adaptation: recognitional, distributive, procedural and restorative justice. This index can be used ex ante to analyse and compare climate adaptation strategies and plans in different societal contexts as well as at different levels of governance, and we illustrate this by analysing four national and four city-level strategies. As adaptation planning is still a relatively new area of climate governance, the results offer potential for justice informed evaluation of adaptation plans and strategies.

Climate change is expected to have detrimental consequences on fragile ecosystems, threatening biodiversity, as well as food security of millions of people. Trees are likely to play a central role in mitigating these impacts. The microclimatic conditions below tree canopies usually differ substantially from the ambient macroclimate as vegetation can buffer temperature changes and variability. Trees cool down their surroundings through several biophysical mechanisms, and the cooling benefits occur also with trees outside forest. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of canopy cover on microclimate in an intensively modified Afromontane landscape in Taita Taveta, Kenya. We studied temperatures recorded by 19 microclimate sensors under different canopy covers, as well as land surface temperature (LST) estimated by Landsat 8 thermal infrared sensor. We combined the temperature records with high-resolution airborne laser scanning data to untangle the combined effects of topography and canopy cover on microclimate. We developed four multivariate regression models to study the joint impacts of topography and canopy cover on LST. The results showed a negative linear relationship between canopy cover percentage and daytime mean (R2=0.65) and maximum (R2=0.75) temperatures. Any increase in canopy cover contributed to reducing temperatures. The average difference between 0 % and 100 % canopy cover sites was 5.2 ∘C in mean temperatures and 10.2 ∘C in maximum temperatures. Canopy cover (CC) reduced LST on average by 0.05 ∘C per percent CC. The influence of canopy cover on microclimate was shown to vary strongly with elevation and ambient temperatures. These results demonstrate that trees have a substantial effect on microclimate, but the effect is dependent on macroclimate, highlighting the importance of maintaining tree cover particularly in warmer conditions. Hence, we demonstrate that trees outside forests can increase climate change resilience in fragmented landscapes, having strong potential for regulating regional and local temperatures.

Current urban green space planning processes are typically guided by greenspace-to-residence proximity indicators. Alone, these indicators are unable to assess, and respond, to the growing socio-spatial polarisation of environmental risks, impacts, and benefits among distinct societal groups within a city. In this research, we present a municipal green space planning tool for measuring the spatial distribution of urban green space diversity within a city, developed using a novel spatial application of the Shannon diversity index to urban green spaces. We illustrate the use of this planning tool in the case of Vantaa, a city in Southern Finland, and examine the association of this diversity indicator with three spatially polarising socio-demographic factors in the region. Contrary to the dominant environmental distributive justice narrative, and stark trends towards socio-spatial polarisation observed in many cities internationally, our findings reveal that urban green space diversity does not currently correlate with income, age structure, or share of population with a foreign background in Vantaa. However, given the changing social dynamics present in our case city, ongoing monitoring and evaluation of who benefits and how from ecosystem service benefits of a diverse urban green space network is necessary. This research offers a practical tool for urban green space planners in European cities facing similar periods of significant differential spatial expansion and changing social dynamics.

Underwater light availability and exposure of ultraviolet radiation (UV) in mountain lakes is mainly controlled by dissolved organic matter and ice cover. However, both of these factors are affected by climate warming and other anthropogenic pressures. Still, little is known of the impacts of long-term fluctuations in underwater light conditions onto functional distribution of diatoms, species sensitive to changes in climate and UV penetration in mountain lakes. Two mountain lakes in the Italian Alps were analysed using paleolimnological approaches to investigate impacts of anthropogenic pressures (e.g., climate warming, acidification) on underwater light availability, exposure to UV and diatom functional group distributions, focusing on the post-industrial era. Contemporary diatom communities were collected from the main habitats in the shallow, high irradiance littoral zones of these lakes and geochemical proxies describing the development of lake-water transparency and carbon dynamics were analyzed from the sediment cores covering the time period from ca. 1400 CE to present. The geochemical data indicate that cultural acidification decreased lake-water organic carbon concentrations in both lakes, which suggests increased light availability and UV exposure during the past century. The responses of the studied lakes to anthropogenic pressures varied, as the lake situated at a lower altitude with a larger catchment showed only a few biotic changes indicating higher resilience, whereas the lake situated at higher altitude showed distinct changes in its ecological status. In this alpine lake, almost 30% of the diatom functional groups shifted from benthic to planktic during the post-industrial era. The role of increased light availability and UV exposure as a driver of diatom functional group distributions could not be unambiguously separated, and such diatom assemblage changes have been shown in many regions and most closely linked to a warming climate. However, low guild functional groups, prevalent also in the contemporary samples from the shallow littoral zone, dominated the diatom communities throughout the studied period, suggesting high tolerance to UV radiation.

Context In northern Europe, changes in forest ecosystem structures are commonly attributed to the ubiquitous impact of modern forestry. However, the starting point for modern forestry was not a pristine forest, but landscapes influenced for centuries by diverse human activities. Objectives Our aims were to (1) describe spatial patterns of forest structure and species compositions over large scales in 1920s Finland, and to (2) analyze how these characteristics were influenced by human population and past land-uses. Methods We mapped ca. 3000 systematic sample plots measured in the first Finnish National Forest Inventory (1921–1924) and produced a series of maps of large-scale variation in forest characteristics in upland forests. We analyzed forest age and size structures, and species compositions relative to human population and land-use data. Results We found strong geographical and regional gradients in forest age and size structures, and tree species composition. Depending on the variable, these characteristics were at the stand-level best explained by human population density, reflecting the long history of various forest uses. Tree species composition was clearly associated with site productivity, but also with the history of slash-and-burn agriculture and forest grazing. Conclusions Forest landscapes in the early twentieth century Finland exhibited a strong human fingerprint, visible as the abundance of young forests in populated areas, while in remote areas forest characteristics typical of natural forests prevailed. These gradients in human impact a century ago are still reflected as legacies in forest structure, a situation that needs consideration in management and restoration.

BackgroundIntensive agriculture, including pesticides, is one of the many reasons for pollinator decline. The EU legislation on plant protection products (hereon pesticides) demands that the risks of active substances and their use in pesticide products are assessed for bees. However, the risk assessment is not always sufficient as shown, for example, in the case of the fungicide Amistar. The fungicide has been shown to cause lethal and sublethal effects on bumblebees at levels that, according to the EU risk assessment, do not require risk mitigation measures to protect bees. In order to understand the effects of chronic Amistar exposure on bumblebees, we studied whether 5 days of oral exposure to 0.015 mu l Amistar (3.75 mu g azoxystrobin/day) impairs bumblebees' learning and memory performance in the 10-colour discrimination task.ResultsChronic Amistar treatment did not impair the learning of the bees, but a statistically non-significant negative trend was observed in memory retention between the final learning bout and the subsequent memory test.ConclusionsThe results of our study suggest that chronic sublethal exposure to Amistar fungicide did not significantly impair the learning ability of bumblebees. However, there was a trend towards impaired memory retention, although this was not statistically significant. These findings provide further support for the hypothesis that Amistar may have a negative effect on bee cognitive performance. It is important to continue studying the effects of widely used pesticides on pollinators, as their decline is a complex issue with multiple contributing factors. Understanding the effects of different pesticide residue levels on bumblebees can inform policymakers in making more sustainable pesticide legislation and help protect pollinators.

Amidst a global biodiversity crisis, shedding light on the factors that make us like a species can help us understand human’s nature-related attitudes and inform conservation actions, e.g. by leveraging flagship potential and helping identify threats. Despite scattered attempts to quantify birds’ aesthetic attractiveness to humans, there is no large-scale database providing homogeneous measures of aesthetic attractiveness that are comparable across bird species. We present data on the visual aesthetic attractiveness of bird species to humans, generated through an internet browser-based questionnaire. Respondents (n = 6,212) were asked to rate the appearance of bird species on a scale from 1 (low) to 10 (high) based on photographs from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library. The rating scores were modeled to obtain final scores of visual aesthetic attractiveness for each bird. The data covers 11,319 bird species and subspecies, with respondents from multiple backgrounds providing over 400,000 scores. This is the first attempt to quantify the overall visual aesthetic attractiveness of the world’s bird species to humans.

Kinetics of collision-sticking processes between vapor molecules and clusters of low-volatility compounds govern the initial steps of atmospheric new particle formation. Conventional non-interacting hard-sphere models underestimate the collision rate by neglecting long-range attractive forces, and the commonly adopted assumption that every collision leads to the formation of a stable cluster (unit mass accommodation coefficient) is questionable for small clusters, especially at elevated temperatures. Here, we present a generally applicable analytical interacting hard-sphere model for evaluating collision rates between molecules and clusters, accounting for long-range attractive forces. In the model, the collision cross section is calculated based on an effective molecule–cluster potential, derived using Hamaker's approach. Applied to collisions of sulfuric acid or dimethylamine with neutral bisulfate–dimethylammonium clusters composed of 1–32 dimers, our new model predicts collision rates 2–3 times higher than the non-interacting model for small clusters, while decaying asymptotically to the non-interacting limit as cluster size increases, in excellent agreement with a collision-rate-theory atomistic molecular dynamics simulation approach. Additionally, we calculated sticking rates and mass accommodation coefficients (MACs) using atomistic molecular dynamics collision simulations. For sulfuric acid, a MAC ≈1 is observed for collisions with all cluster sizes at temperatures between 200 and 400 K. For dimethylamine, we find that MACs decrease with increasing temperature and decreasing cluster size. At low temperatures, the MAC ≈1 assumption is generally valid, but at elevated temperatures MACs can drop below 0.2 for small clusters.

Production of fish meal and plant-based feed proteins continues to increase to meet the growing demand for seafood, leading to impacts on marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Microbial proteins such as single-cell proteins (SCPs) have been introduced as feed alternatives since they can replace current fish feed ingredients, e.g., soybean, which are associated with negative environmental impacts. Microbial protein production also enables utilization of grain processing side-streams as feedstock sources. This study assesses the environmental impacts of yeast-based SCP using oat side-stream as feedstock (OS-SCP). Life-cycle assessment with a cradle-to-gate approach was used to quantify global warming, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, terrestrial acidification, land use, and water consumption of OS-SCP production in Finland. Dried and wet side-streams of oat were compared with each other to identify differences in energy consumption and transportation effects. Sensitivity analysis was performed to examine the difference in impacts at various locations and fermentation times. Benchmarking was used to evaluate the environmental impacts of OS-SCP and other feed products, including both conventional and novel protein products. Results highlight the importance of energy sources in quantifying the environmental performance of OS-SCP production. OS-SCP produced with dried side-streams resulted in higher global warming (16.3 %) and water consumption (7.5 %) than OS-SCP produced from wet side-streams, reflecting the energy and water requirements for the drying process. Compared with conventional products, such as soy protein concentrates, OS-SCP resulted in 61 % less land use, while exacerbating the environmental impacts in all the other categories. OS-SCP had more impact on global warming (205–754 %), water consumption (166–1401 %), freshwater eutrophication (118–333 %), and terrestrial acidification (85–340 %) than other novel products, including yeast protein concentrate, methanotrophic bacterial SCP, and insect meal, while lowering global warming (11 %) and freshwater eutrophication (20 %) compared with dry microalgae biomass.

Patterns and processes shaping ecosystems vary across spatiotemporal scales. As plant functional traits reflect ecosystem properties, investigating their relationships with environment provides an important tool to understand and predict ecosystem structure and functioning. This is particularly important in the tundra where a changing climate may trigger severe alterations in plant communities as both summer and winter conditions are changing. Here, we investigate the relationships between key environmental drivers including summer temperature, snow persistence, topographic position and soil pH, and species height, specific leaf area (SLA) and seed mass as plant traits. The study is carried out at three spatial extents in the arctic-alpine region of Fennoscandia, modelling the trait-environment relationships at each scale to investigate whether the relationships are scale dependent. Our results show that summer temperature and snow persistence are the most important variables explaining community trait composition. Temperature is important especially to vegetation height, which increased towards higher temperatures, whereas seed mass and SLA are related to snow persistence. Seed mass decreased towards longer snow persistence, while SLA responded in scale-dependent ways. Topographic position and soil pH affect community trait composition moderately. Overall, our study demonstrates that trait-environment relationships in the tundra are largely consistent across spatial scales. Our findings highlight the ecological relevance of snow for all three functional traits regardless of scale, showing that snow information could be particularly important to better understand large-scale trends in plant community composition and ecosystem functioning as seasonal snow cover is shrinking globally.

Understanding drivers of demand for exotic pets may help inform adequate conservation strategies to address unsustainable trade. Here, we used a best-worst scaling approach to understand the variety of preferences and motivations for owning exotic pets. Respondents (316 from 33 countries) preferred exotic pets that were captive-bred, had rare aesthetic features, and were common in the wild and abundant in the market. Species that were at risk of extinction, in short supply, sourced from the wild, and under trade restrictions were the least favoured by respondents. Feelings of care, such as attachment, affection, nurture, as well as curiosity and being passionate about the species, were dominant motivations for pet keepers. Respondents were willing to support the conservation of species in the wild. Our findings highlight that relational dimensions are among the most important aspects influencing decisions to own exotic pets. Certification systems of origin that supports animal welfare and conservation may help consumers support sustainable trade in exotic pet species. However, attention should be paid to challenges throughout the supply chain and not to incentivize consumers' preferences for rare genetic features as this may pose a risk to the conservation of species in the wild. When planning conservation initiatives and policies, considering relational dimensions may provide novel insights to better foster meaningful expressions of care with animals in the wild, as opposed to animals as exotic pets. Fostering care, as a normative human sense of kinship with non-humans, could help channeling “demand for ownership” towards “stewardship relations” with nature. peerReviewed

Interactions in urban environment were investigated using a multidisciplinary model combination, with focus on traffic, emissions and atmospheric particles. An agent-based model was applied to simulate the evolution of unsustainable human behavior (usage of combustion-based personal vehicles) as a function of pro-environmental affordances (opportunities for sustainable choices). Scenarios regarding changes in multi-pollutant emissions were derived, and the non-linear implications to atmospheric particles were simulated with a box model. Based on the results for a Nordic city, increasing pro-environmental affordances by 10%, 50% or 100% leads to emission reductions of 15%, 30% and 40% within 2 years. To reduce ambient particle mass, emissions from traffic should decrease by > 15%, while the lung deposited surface area decreases in all scenarios ($$-\,23\%$$ - 23 % , $$-\,32\%$$ - 32 % and $$-\,36\%$$ - 36 % , correspondingly). The presented case is representative of one season, but the approach is generic and applicable to simulating a full year, given meteorological and pollution data that reflects seasonal variation. This work emphasizes the necessity to consider feedback mechanisms and non-linearities in both human behavior and atmospheric processes, when predicting the outcomes of changes in an urban system.

Forest management practices modify the composition and three-dimensional structure of boreal forests. Such changes affect light regimes, microclimate and habitat availability in forests, thus contributing to the regulation of ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. Compared to traditional even-aged forestry, prevalent in Fenno-scandia since the mid-20th century, uneven-aged forestry has emerged as an alternative approach that may lead to more diverse and resilient forests, as well as a more sustainable provision of ecosystem services. However, the biophysical impacts of uneven-aged strategies have not yet been robustly quantified. Here, we present a detailed assessment of the structural characteristics of even-aged and uneven-aged boreal forest stands in southern Finland, aiming to clarify how these different management approaches regulate three-dimensional forest structure. Using terrestrial laser scanning, we derived and compared several structural traits closely linked to forest functioning. We found that, although different management types result in similar patterns in total plant material, they differ significantly on how plant material is allocated within vertical strata. Moreover, we demonstrated that commonly used structural diversity metrics cannot not capture the morphological intricacies arising from the three-dimensional dispersion of plant material inside the forest stand. Our results highlight the dynamic nature of even-aged forests, where the structural characteristics change with the rotation, whereas uneven-aged forest structures are more stable over time. Precise quantification of forest structure will help to understand which attributes impact the environmental functions and conditions that modify ecosystem services, and how these are altered with forest management.

Several studies have investigated new particle formation (NPF) events from various sites ranging from pristine locations, including forest sites, to urban areas. However, there is still a dearth of studies investigating NPF processes and subsequent aerosol growth in coastal yet semi-urban sites, where the tropospheric layer is a concoction of biogenic and anthropogenic gases and particles. The investigation of factors leading to NPF becomes extremely complex due to the highly dynamic meteorological conditions at the coastline especially when combined with both continental and oceanic weather conditions. Herein, we engage in a comprehensive study of particle number size distributions and aerosol-forming precursor vapors at the coastal semi-urban site in Helsinki, Finland. The measurement period, 25 June–18 August 2019, was timed with the recurring cyanobacterial summer bloom in the Baltic Sea region and coastal regions of Finland. Our study recorded several regional/local NPF and aerosol burst events during this period. Although the overall anthropogenic influence on sulfuric acid (SA) concentrations was low during the measurement period, we observed that the regional or local NPF events, characterized by SA concentrations on the order of 107 molec.cm-3, occurred mostly when the air mass traveled over the land areas. Interestingly, when the air mass traveled over the Baltic Sea, an area enriched with algae and cyanobacterial blooms, high iodic acid (IA) concentration coincided with an aerosol burst or a spike event at the measurement site. Further, SA-rich bursts were seen when the air mass traveled over the Gulf of Bothnia, enriched with cyanobacterial blooms. The two most important factors affecting aerosol precursor vapor concentrations, and thus the aerosol formation, were speculated to be (1) the type of phytoplankton species and intensity of bloom present in the coastal regions of Finland and the Baltic Sea and (2) the wind direction. During the events, most of the growth of sub-3 nm particles was probably due to SA, rather than IA or methane sulfonic acid (MSA); however much of the particle growth remained unexplained indicative of the strong role of organics in the growth of particles, especially in the 3–7 nm particle size range. Further studies are needed to explore the role of organics in NPF events and the potential influence of cyanobacterial blooms in coastal locations.

Models that estimate rates of energy flow in complex food webs often fail to account for species-specific prey selectivity of diverse consumer guilds. While DNA metabarcoding is increasingly used for dietary studies, methodological biases have limited its application for food web modeling. Here, we used data from dietary metabarcoding studies of zooplankton to calculate prey selectivity indices and assess energy fluxes in a pelagic resource-consumer network. We show that food web dynamics are influenced by prey selectivity and temporal match-mismatch in growth cycles and that cyanobacteria are the main source of primary production in the investigated coastal pelagic food web. The latter challenges the common assumption that cyanobacteria are not supporting food web productivity, a result that is increasingly relevant as global warming promotes cyanobacteria dominance. While this study provides a method for how DNA metabarcoding can be used to quantify energy fluxes in a marine food web, the approach presented here can easily be extended to other ecosystems.

Non-technical summaryThe industrial food system is widely considered to be unsustainable due to its undesired climate and health effects. One proposed alternative to these problems is a more local system of food provisioning. This means involving individuals, households, and communities in growing and acquiring edibles, like vegetables and other food stuff. This study based on a literature review found that food self-provisioning practitioners are mainly driven by health concerns and less by reasoning linked to the environment, like climate change adaptation and mitigation. We propose that the potential of food self-provisioning is underutilised in developing the sustainability of food systems. Technical summaryIn this article, we review and analyse the literature and concept of 'food self-provisioning' in order to understand its potential as a response to contemporary challenges. The focus of the study is on investigating the meanings related to environmental problems, particularly climate change, and issues of health. Firstly, we show how food self-provisioning is conceptualised vis-a-vis health and the environment; and secondly, what the (potential) implications of food self-provisioning to interlinked human and non-human health and beyond are. Based on the conducted literature review (n = 44), meanings of food self-provisioning are found to connect primarily to issues of human health and only secondarily to environmental questions, and even more marginally to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Our analysis cuts across the scales of households, communities, cities, and regions, including their diverse geographies, and hereby also comments on the questions of multilevel organising of self-provisioning, and what the notion of 'self' implies in this context. Social media summaryThe potential of food self-provisioning is underutilised in developing the sustainability of food systems.

Scale is a key aspect in spatial data science in both vector and raster data for furtheranalysis. There is a clear distinction between vector and raster data. However, there is not aclear distinction for scale in vector data. This paper focuses on population differences betweenthree national Finnish vector grid data scales, which have minimum population restrictionswhen used for further analysis. The results show that 440,320 of the 5.5 million population ofFinland are omitted in the finest spatial scale and 8,825 are omitted from the largest spatialscale, which has negative impacts for future spatial planning.

Island biotas are in imminent threat from anthropogenic impacts. Of these impacts, the negative effects of exotic species on the taxonomic and functional diversity of the local fauna are of major concern. Exotics may also have a detrimental effect on interspecific interactions which, in turn, can destabilize ecological networks. Species co-occurrence networks can detect species-to-species associations and are used to predict ecological interaction networks and utilized as tools to assess environmental impacts on community structure. Here, we aim to investigate whether or not topological differences of the arthropod co-occurrence networks among native forest fragments from seven Azorean islands can reveal the influence of the abiotic environment and exotic species on these networks. Co-occurrence networks were sensitive to environmental and community dissimilarities, showing a clear separation between islands and pinpointed differences between indigenous and exotic networks. Most exotics were little connected and exotic networks had a large proportion of unconnected species. The resulting decreased connectance and the increased modularity with the increase of the proportions of exotics in the networks suggest that most exotics have too low prevalence to show associations with other species, and only a few dominants drive co-occurrences. The proportion of negative links, as indicators of competition, did not increase with the increase of exotics in the habitats, suggesting that exotics provided new functional roles when they colonized native forest remnants. However, when the theoretical networks consisting of only indigenous species were investigated, connectance decreased and closeness increased with the increase of exotics, suggesting processes of network degradation. Since our study provides ample evidence for the usefulness of co-occurrence network analysis in studying island ecosystems, we recommend the use of this tool for ecosystem assessments, early warning systems and decision-making in island biodiversity conservation. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Ditches of forestry-drained peatlands are an important source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. These CH4 emissions are currently estimated using the IPCC Tier 1 emission factor (21.7 g CH4 m−2 y−1), which is based on a limited number of observations (11 study sites) and does not take into account that the emissions are affected by the condition and age of the ditches. Furthermore, the total area of different kinds of ditches remains insufficiently estimated. To construct more advanced ditch CH4 emission factors for Finland, we measured CH4 emissions in ditches of 3 forestry-drained peatland areas (manual chamber technique) and amended this dataset with previously measured unpublished and published data from 18 study areas. In a predetermined 2-type ditch classification scheme, the mean CH4 emissions (±standard error) were 2.6 ± 0.8 g CH4 m−2 y−1 and 20.6 ± 7.0 g CH4 m-2 y−1 in moss-covered and moss-free ditches, respectively. In a more detailed 4-type classification scheme, the yearly emissions were 0.6 ± 0.3, 3.8 ± 1.1, 8.8 ± 3.2, and 25.1 ± 9.7 g CH4 m−2 y−1 in Sphagnum-covered, Sphagnum- and vascular plant—covered, moss-free and vascular plant-covered, and plant - free ditches, respectively. Hence, we found that Tier 1 emission factor may overestimate ditch CH4 emissions through overestimation of the emissions of moss-covered ditches, irrespective of whether they harbor potentially CH4 conducing vascular plants. Based on the areal estimates and the CH4 emission factors for moss-covered and moss-free ditches, CH4 emissions of ditches of forestry-drained peatlands in Finland were 8,600 t a−1, which is 63% lower than the current greenhouse gas inventory estimates for ditch CH4 emissions (23,200 t a−1). We suggest that the Tier 1 emission factor should be replaced with more advanced emission factors in the estimation of ditch CH4 emissions of boreal forestry-drained peatlands also in other countries than in Finland. Furthermore, our results suggest that the current practice in Finland to minimize ditch-network maintenance by ditch cleaning will likely decrease CH4 emissions from ditches, since old moss-covered ditches have very low emissions.

Pastoralism in Old World savannas is known to emit a significant share of global livestock-sourced greenhouse gases (GHG). Here, we compare calculated emissions from animals in a wildlife-dominated savanna (14.3 Mg km−2), to those in an adjacent land with similar ecological characteristics but under pastoralism (12.8 Mg km−2). The similar estimates for both, wildlife and pastoralism (76.2 vs 76.5 Mg CO2-eq km−2), point out an intrinsic association of emissions with herbivore ecological niches. Considering natural baseline or natural background emissions in grazing systems has important implications in the analysis of global food systems. © 2023, The Author(s). Financial support was provided by the Spanish Government through María de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2023-2026 (Ref. CEX2021-001201-M, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033); by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2024 program; by the CircAgric-GHG project funded by the 2nd 2021 call “Programación conjunta internacional 2021” (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR (ref. num: PCI2021-122048-2A); and by the IUBS project “Global Integrative Pastoralism Program”. AdP is funded by the Ramon y Cajal program from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (RYC-2017-22143). AdP and PM are funded by Ikerbasque—Basque Science Foundation. P.M. was also funded by a post-doctoral grant of the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science.

Climate warming is expected to influence terrestrial biogeochemical cycles by modifying the quality and quantity of plant litter input to soils. Although a growing number of studies recognize the importance of plant litter input in influencing the loss of soil organic matter (SOM) through a phenomenon called the priming effect (PE), the exact mechanisms behind PE are not well known. Importantly, most PE research is based on short term pot experiments in which fresh organic matter (FOM) input is represented by a single addition of compounds of unnaturally simple chemical composition. Furthermore, only a few studies exist in which the PE was explored in terms of organic C (SOC) and total N content in the soil. Here, we report results of a 3-year long litter manip-ulation study conducted under natural conditions in a broadleaved Korean pine forest in N-E China. We show that the extra supply (twice the normal input) of aboveground tree litter composing of conifer needles, leaves and small twigs was associated not only with slightly decreased SOC (by 5%) but especially that of soil total N (STN) (by 15%) content in the top soil (0-5 cm depth). In contrast, removal of litter resulted in an increased (ca. 15%) amount of both SOC and STN during the study when compared to control soils receiving natural litter input. Despite the enhanced leaf litter decomposition rate in the treatment receiving extra litter, the changes in SOC and STN were related neither to soil microbial biomass nor to community composition. The amount of N lost (40.0 g m- 2) in the soil due to litter addition was ca. three times the amount of N added (12.3 g m- 2) via the litter, while the amount of C lost (238 g m- 2) was about one third of that added (940 g m- 2), suggesting that soil N in our research site is more prone to the PE than soil C. As we did not manipulate belowground FOM input, our results suggest that input of aboveground litter rather than that by roots explained the PE in our study. Results of our long-term study conducted under natural conditions in undisturbed forest soils highlight the large potential of recalcitrant, aboveground litter to affect the PE, which should not go unnoticed when predicting the role of forest soils under conditions (such as climate warming) when these soils act as C sinks.

Increased meteorological drought intensity with rising atmospheric demand for water (hereafter vapor pressure deficit [VPD]) increases the risk of tree mortality and ecosystem dysfunction worldwide. Ecosystem-scale water-use strategy is increasingly recognized as a key factor in regulating drought-related ecosystem responses. However, the link between water-use strategy and ecosystem vulnerability to meteorological droughts is poorly established. Using the global flux observations, historic hydroclimatic data, remote-sensing products, and plant functional-trait archive, we identified potentially vulnerable ecosystems, examining how ecosystem water-use strategy, quantified by the percentage bias (delta) of the empirical canopy conductance sensitivity to VPD relative to the theoretical value, mediated ecosystem responses to droughts. We found that prevailing soil water availability substantially impacted delta in dryland regions where ecosystems with insufficient soil moisture usually showed conservative water-use strategy, while ecosystems in humid regions exhibited more pronounced climatic adaptability. Hyposensitive and hypersensitive ecosystems, classified based on delta falling below or above the theoretical sensitivity, respectively, achieved similar net ecosystem productivity during droughts, employing different structural and functional strategies. However, hyposensitive ecosystems, risking their hydraulic system with a permissive water-use strategy, were unable to recover from droughts as quickly as hypersensitive ones. Our findings highlight that processed-based models predicting current functions and future performance of vegetation should account for the greater vulnerability of hyposensitive ecosystems to intensifying atmospheric and soil droughts.

Urban wetlands are one of the important natural resources in cities and have an essential role in the sustainability of the urban environment. They offer various ecosystem services in cities, for example, by mitigating the risk of floods, providing water purification, groundwater regulation, and biodiversity promotion. Urban wetlands also provide recreational opportunities such as swimming and boating, that improve citizens’ well-being. Unfortunately, human activities and environmental factors have been the primary reasons that have destroyed urban wetlands. To identify the main factors which threaten wetlands, as a case study, we investigated the environmental history of six urban wetlands in Helsinki starting from 19th century to the present. We collected historical information from available documents such as research articles, technical reports, maps, and photos, and then we compared the past situation of these urban wetlands with the current conditions throughout history. We also support our statements by referring to urban wetlands with similar conditions from different continents to explain the reasons for wetlands’ disappearance, degradation, or survival. We show that population growth, land-use change, and climate change have been the main threats that have caused the degradation and even the loss of urban wetlands. We discuss the influencing factors which threaten urban wetlands and we highlight the role of policy and decision-makers in the rehabilitation and maintenance of urban wetlands.

The mechanisms driving the Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) cycles remain uncertain, but promising hy-potheses could explain it, and a comprehensive assessment of its impact is needed. We have identified DO-like millennial-scale climate variability in a glacial simulation based on the salt oscillator hypothesis with the HadCM3B-M2.1 coupled atmosphere-ocean-vegetation model. The simulated DO-like warming shows temperature changes of 7.1 +/- 2.5 degrees C in Greenland, comparable to DO9 and DO6, the smallest temperature changes of the observed DO events. This study focuses on the impacts of DO-like events on climate and vegetation beyond the North Atlantic. We find that the simulated warming in the Northern Hemisphere extratropics during Greenland interstadials agree with available proxy estimates. The simulated tropical hydroclimatic responses during the interstadials, such as northward propagation of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, strengthening of some Northern Hemisphere summer monsoons, and weakening of some Southern Hemisphere monsoons, are also consistent with proxy estimates. Moreover, simulated vegetation cover in the Northern Hemisphere increases during interstadials relative to stadials, while no large-scale dominant vegetation changes are consistent with observed biome changes associated with DO6. Our simulation based on the salt oscillator hypothesis can account for many observed features of DO events. However, it cannot simulate several observed climate responses in the equatorial Indian and western Pacific Oceans, including the East Asian and South African monsoon. The causes of those mismatches need to be further explored, whether they are hypothesis-dependent or model-dependent.(c) 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/).

This book was written with the assistance of Maija Harju, Ruta Jumite, Juuso Kortelainen, Marianna Laine, Shreya Sood and Sonja Sorri The theoretical structure for this textbook and course were developed over the 2 years of the ATARCA project. We worked to develop a means to mitigate the environmental tragedy of the commons associated with climate change. We diagnosed that two problems to be solved are (1) the negligible impact each individual makes on the global atmospheric commons, and (2) the worry that others will not do their part in making sustainable choices. As well, individuals may not have perfect information about the impact of their consumptive choices. The introductory video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgBEQq0laKE&t=2s

Highly oxygenated compounds are important contributors to the formation and growth of atmospheric organic aerosol and thus have an impact on Earth’s radiation balance and global climate. However, knowledge of the contribution of highly oxygenated compounds to organic aerosol and their fate after condensing into the particle phase has been limited by the lack of suitable detection techniques. Here, we present a new online method for measuring highly oxygenated compounds from organic aerosol. The method includes thermal evaporation of particles in a new inlet, the vaporization inlet for aerosols (VIA), followed by identification of the evaporated highly oxygenated compounds by a nitrate chemical ionization mass spectrometer (NO3-CIMS). The method does not require sample collection, enabling highly time-resolved measurements of particulate compounds. We evaluate the performance of the method by measuring the detection limit and performing background measurements. We estimate a detection limit of below 1 ng m−3 for a single compound and below 1 µg m−3 for SOA with the sampling setup used here. These detection limits can be improved upon by optimizing the flow setup. Furthermore, we detect hundreds of particulate highly oxygenated compounds from organic aerosol generated from different precursors. Our results are consistent with previous studies showing that the volatility of organic compounds decreases with increasing m/z ratio and level of oxygenation and that organic aerosol consists of monomers and oligomeric compounds. By comparing the gas- and particle-phase compounds, we found indications of potential particle-phase reactions occurring in organic aerosol. Future work will focus both on further improving the sampling design and on better understanding the evaporation dynamics of the system, but already these initial tests show that the VIA coupled to the NO3-CIMS is a promising method for investigating the transformations and fate of the compounds after condensing into the particle phase.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread across the globe producing hundreds of thousands of deaths, shutting down economies, closing borders and causing havoc on an unprecedented scale. Its potent effects have earned the attention of researchers in different fields worldwide. Among them, authors from different countries have published numerous research articles based on the environmental concepts of COVID-19. The environment is considered an essential receptor in the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is academically significant to look into publications to follow the pathway of hot topics of research and upcoming trends in studies. Reviewing the literature can therefore provide valuable information regarding the strengths and weaknesses in facing the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the environmental viewpoint. The present study categorizes the understanding caused by environmental and COVID-19-related published papers in the Scopus metadata from 2020 to 2021. VOSviewer is a promising bibliometric tool used to analyze the publications with keywords "COVID-19*" and "Environment." Then, a narrative evaluation is utilized to delineate the most interesting research topics. Co-occurrence analysis is applied in this research, which further characterizes different thematic clusters. The published literature mainly focused on four central cluster environmental concepts: air pollution, epidemiology and virus transmission, water and wastewater, and environmental policy. It also reveals that environmental policy has gained worldwide interest, with the main keyword "management" and includes keywords like waste management, sustainability, governance, ecosystem, and climate change. Although these keywords could also appear in other environmental policy-related research studies, the importance of the COVID-19 pandemic requires such comprehensive research. The fourth cluster involves governance and management concerns encountered during the pandemic. Mapping the research topics in different clusters will pave the way for researchers to view future potential ideas and studies better. The scope for further research needs from the perspective of environmental concepts is reviewed and recommended, which can expand the vital role and value of environmental sciences in alerting, observing, and COVID-19 prediction for all four clusters. In other words, the research trend would shift from qualitative studies and perspectives to quantitative ones.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under grant 2020AAA0106000 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under U1936217. In this work, we use data from the UK government, Office for National Statistics, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, NHS Business Services Authority, the Met Office, and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0, and the produced dataset contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right [2022]. We use OpenStreetMap data under the Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0. The satellite image data is collected from Esri under the Esri Master License Agreement. We acknowledge these publicly available data sources for promoting this study., This paper presents a fine-grained and multi-sourced dataset for environmental determinants of health collected from England cities. We provide health outcomes of citizens covering physical health (COVID-19 cases, asthma medication expenditure, etc.), mental health (psychological medication expenditure), and life expectancy estimations. We present the corresponding environmental determinants from four perspectives, including basic statistics (population, area, etc.), behavioural environment (availability of tobacco, health-care services, etc.), built environment (road density, street view features, etc.), and natural environment (air quality, temperature, etc.). To reveal regional differences, we extract and integrate massive environment and health indicators from heterogeneous sources into two unified spatial scales, i.e., at the middle layer super output area (MSOA) and the city level, via big data processing and deep learning. Our data holds great promise for diverse audiences, such as public health researchers and urban designers, to further unveil the environmental determinants of health and design methodology for a healthy, sustainable city.

Peer reviewed: True, Recent studies have suggested that protected areas often fail to conserve target species. However, the efficacy of terrestrial protected areas is difficult to measure, especially for highly vagile species like migratory birds that may move between protected and unprotected areas throughout their lives. Here, we use a 30-y dataset of detailed demographic data from a migratory waterbird, the Whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus), to assess the value of nature reserves (NRs). We assess how demographic rates vary at sites with varying levels of protection and how they are influenced by movements between sites. Swans had a lower breeding probability when wintering inside NRs than outside but better survival for all age classes, generating a 30-fold higher annual growth rate within NRs. There was also a net movement of individuals from NRs to non-NRs. By combining these demographic rates and estimates of movement (into and out of NRs) into population projection models, we show that the NRs should help to double the population of swans wintering in the United Kingdom by 2030. These results highlight the major effect that spatial management can have on species conservation, even when the areas protected are relatively small and only used during short periods of the life cycle.

Social media data are transforming sustainability science. However, challenges from restrictions in data accessibility and ethical concerns regarding potential data misuse have threatened this nascent field. Here, we review the literature on the use of social media data in environmental and sustainability research. We find that they can play a novel and irreplaceable role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by allowing a nuanced understanding of human-nature interactions at scale, observing the dynamics of so-cial-ecological change, and investigating the co-construction of nature values. We reveal threats to data ac-cess and highlight scientific responsibility to address trade-offs between research transparency and privacy protection, while promoting inclusivity. This contributes to a wider societal debate of social media data for sustainability science and for the common good.

Simple Summary Rapidly changing environmental conditions can alter the spatial distribution of flora and fauna. This study aimed to understand the influence of environmental variables on the Blue bull's distribution and identify potential conflict zones in Nepal. Using ensemble modeling, the habitat suitability analysis of the Blue bull was performed by selecting 15 ecologically significant environmental variables and employing ten species distribution modeling algorithms. Random Forest, Maxent, and Generalized linear models showed the highest mean true skill statistics scores and were further analyzed. The study found that 15.26% of Nepal, or 22,462.57 km(2), is suitable for the Blue bull, and the environmental variables contributing to the distribution of the Blue bull were slope, precipitation seasonality, and distance to the road. Furthermore, 45% of the predicted suitable habitats overlap with agricultural land, highlighting the potential for human-Blue bull conflicts. Therefore, this study recommends implementing appropriate conflict mitigation measures, such as cooperatively guarding crops, changing cropping patterns, using repellents, fencing, translocation, physical barriers, and sterilization. This study establishes a baseline for suitable habitats for the Blue bull and identifies potential conflict zones in Nepal, emphasizing the need for conservation initiatives inside and outside protected areas. Rapidly changing environmental conditions (bioclimatic, anthropogenic, topographic, and vegetation-related variables) are likely to alter the spatial distribution of flora and fauna. To understand the influence of environmental variables on the Blue bull's distribution and to identify potential conflict zones, the habitat suitability analysis of the Blue bull was performed using ensemble modeling. We modelled the distribution of the Blue bull using an extensive database on the current distribution of the Blue bull and selected 15 ecologically significant environmental variables. We used ten species distribution modeling algorithms available in the BIOMOD2 R package. Among the ten algorithms, the Random Forest, Maxent, and Generalized linear model had the highest mean true skill statistics scores, ensuring better model performance, and were considered for further analysis. We found that 22,462.57 km(2) (15.26%) of Nepal is suitable for the Blue bull. Slope, precipitation seasonality, and distance to the road are the environmental variables contributing the most to the distribution of Blue bull. Of the total predicted suitable habitats, 86% lies outside protected areas and 55% overlaps with agricultural land. Thus, we recommend that the future conservation initiatives including appropriate conflict mitigation measures should be prioritized equally in both protected areas and outside protected areas to ensure the species' survival in the region.

Sinking marine aggregates have been studied for a long time to understand their role in carbon sequestration. Traditionally, sinking speed and respiration rates have been treated as independent variables, but two recent papers suggest that there is a connection albeit in contrasting directions. Here we collected recently formed (100 m d-1) was 0.12 d-1 ± 0.08 d-1 (SD). Slower sinking aggregates (

Wood use is expanding to new markets, driven by the need to substitute fossil-intensive products and energy. Wood products can contribute to climate change mitigation, if they have a lower fossil footprint than alternative products serving the same function. However, the climate change mitigation potential is contingent on the net fossil and biogenic emissions over time, as well as the realism of the counterfactual scenario and market assumptions. This study aims to improve the consistency of assessing the avoided fossil emissions attributed to changes in wood use, and to estimate the additional mitigation potential of increased wood use in construction and textile markets based on wood harvested in Finland. The results show that, compared to baseline, an increase in the market share of wood leads to an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration by 2050. Thus, the substitution impacts of wood use are not large enough to compensate for the reduction in forest carbon sinks in the short and medium term. This outcome is further aggravated, considering the decarbonization of the energy sector driven by the Paris Agreement, which lowers the fossil emissions of competing sectors more than those of the forest sector. The expected decarbonization is a highly desirable trend, but it will further lengthen the carbon parity period associated with an increase in wood harvest. This creates a strong motive to pursue shifts in wood uses instead of merely expanding all wood uses.