Pub Date : 2024-07-16DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01395-7
Sadeeb S. Ottenburger, Rob Cox, Badrul H. Chowdhury, Dmytro Trybushnyi, Ehmedi Al Omar, Sujay A. Kaloti, Ulrich Ufer, Witold-R. Poganietz, Weijia Liu, Evgenia Deines, Tim O. Müller, Stella Möhrle, Wolfgang Raskob
The impacts of natural hazards on infrastructure, enhanced by climate change, are increasingly more severe emphasizing the necessity of resilient energy grids. Microgrids, tailored energy systems for specific neighbourhoods and districts, play a pivotal role in sustaining energy supply during main grid outages. These solutions not only mitigate economic losses and well-being disruptions against escalating hazards but also enhance city resilience in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11. However, disregarding socioeconomic factors in defining microgrid boundaries risks perpetuating inequalities and impeding progress towards other SDG 11 targets, including fair democratic participation. Our approach integrates social and technical indicators to bolster urban microgrid planning. Through a case study in a US county, we illustrate how integrated microgrid planning effectively intertwines urban resilience, well-being and equity while promoting sustainable development. This study underscores the importance of integrated microgrid planning for sustainable and resilient urban transformation amid environmental and societal challenges. Improving the resilience of energy systems to natural hazards cannot rely only on strengthening technical aspects of energy grids. This study shows how integrating technical and socioeconomic dimensions in the design of microgrids can enhance the resilience and equity of energy systems and promote well-being.
{"title":"Sustainable urban transformations based on integrated microgrid designs","authors":"Sadeeb S. Ottenburger, Rob Cox, Badrul H. Chowdhury, Dmytro Trybushnyi, Ehmedi Al Omar, Sujay A. Kaloti, Ulrich Ufer, Witold-R. Poganietz, Weijia Liu, Evgenia Deines, Tim O. Müller, Stella Möhrle, Wolfgang Raskob","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01395-7","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01395-7","url":null,"abstract":"The impacts of natural hazards on infrastructure, enhanced by climate change, are increasingly more severe emphasizing the necessity of resilient energy grids. Microgrids, tailored energy systems for specific neighbourhoods and districts, play a pivotal role in sustaining energy supply during main grid outages. These solutions not only mitigate economic losses and well-being disruptions against escalating hazards but also enhance city resilience in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11. However, disregarding socioeconomic factors in defining microgrid boundaries risks perpetuating inequalities and impeding progress towards other SDG 11 targets, including fair democratic participation. Our approach integrates social and technical indicators to bolster urban microgrid planning. Through a case study in a US county, we illustrate how integrated microgrid planning effectively intertwines urban resilience, well-being and equity while promoting sustainable development. This study underscores the importance of integrated microgrid planning for sustainable and resilient urban transformation amid environmental and societal challenges. Improving the resilience of energy systems to natural hazards cannot rely only on strengthening technical aspects of energy grids. This study shows how integrating technical and socioeconomic dimensions in the design of microgrids can enhance the resilience and equity of energy systems and promote well-being.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 8","pages":"1067-1079"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01395-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141643599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-16DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01383-x
Yangdi Niu, Deming Xue, Xianqi Dai, Gaofu Guo, Xiaoli Yang, Lin Yang, Zhengyu Bai
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are an emerging technology that could degrade contaminants and produce electricity simultaneously with the assistance of microorganisms. However, key challenges remain for their practical implementation, including the lack of efficient and cost-effective catalysts at the cathode. Here we take advantage of a sustainable cathode biocatalyst to construct a high-performance MFC that allows fast treatment of sewage and competitive power output. Our catalyst design is built on the Escherichia coli cell, which, upon coupled gene and nano engineering, shows excellent oxygen reduction reaction activity (current density of 3.32 mA cm−2 and onset potential of 0.63 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode) and accelerates the depollution of organic matter in sewage sludge. Remarkably, glucose consumption reaches a level as high as 19.4 mM in 100 h with a maximum power density of 334 μW cm−2. Combined characterizations and theoretical calculations reveal that the enabling chemistry is the unique configuration of the iron centre of intermembranous cytochrome c in cells. Our study not only opens a new path for the rational design of electrocatalysts but also suggests the feasibility of addressing environmental issues using MFCs. This study presents a microorganism electrocatalyst for the cathode of a microbial fuel cell that allows simultaneous electricity generation and treatment of sewage.
微生物燃料电池（MFCs）是一项新兴技术，可在微生物的帮助下降解污染物并同时发电。然而，其实际应用仍面临关键挑战，包括阴极缺乏高效且成本效益高的催化剂。在这里，我们利用一种可持续的阴极生物催化剂，构建了一种高性能的 MFC，既能快速处理污水，又能输出具有竞争力的电能。我们的催化剂设计建立在大肠杆菌细胞的基础上，通过基因和纳米工程耦合，大肠杆菌细胞显示出卓越的氧还原反应活性（相对于可逆氢电极，电流密度为 3.32 mA cm-2，起始电位为 0.63 V），并加速了污水污泥中有机物的去污。值得注意的是，在 100 小时内，葡萄糖消耗量高达 19.4 mM，最大功率密度为 334 μW cm-2。综合表征和理论计算显示，促成这种化学反应的是细胞中膜间细胞色素 c 铁中心的独特构型。我们的研究不仅为合理设计电催化剂开辟了一条新的道路，还表明了利用 MFCs 解决环境问题的可行性。本研究提出了一种用于微生物燃料电池阴极的微生物电催化剂，可同时发电和处理污水。
{"title":"Sustainable power generation from sewage with engineered microorganisms as electrocatalysts","authors":"Yangdi Niu, Deming Xue, Xianqi Dai, Gaofu Guo, Xiaoli Yang, Lin Yang, Zhengyu Bai","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01383-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01383-x","url":null,"abstract":"Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are an emerging technology that could degrade contaminants and produce electricity simultaneously with the assistance of microorganisms. However, key challenges remain for their practical implementation, including the lack of efficient and cost-effective catalysts at the cathode. Here we take advantage of a sustainable cathode biocatalyst to construct a high-performance MFC that allows fast treatment of sewage and competitive power output. Our catalyst design is built on the Escherichia coli cell, which, upon coupled gene and nano engineering, shows excellent oxygen reduction reaction activity (current density of 3.32 mA cm−2 and onset potential of 0.63 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode) and accelerates the depollution of organic matter in sewage sludge. Remarkably, glucose consumption reaches a level as high as 19.4 mM in 100 h with a maximum power density of 334 μW cm−2. Combined characterizations and theoretical calculations reveal that the enabling chemistry is the unique configuration of the iron centre of intermembranous cytochrome c in cells. Our study not only opens a new path for the rational design of electrocatalysts but also suggests the feasibility of addressing environmental issues using MFCs. This study presents a microorganism electrocatalyst for the cathode of a microbial fuel cell that allows simultaneous electricity generation and treatment of sewage.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 9","pages":"1182-1189"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141641129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-10DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01386-8
Jing Meng, Feng Ryan Wang
Electronic, health-care and energy applications largely rely on miniaturized structures, the fabrication of which, although technically beneficial, is energy intensive and requires the use of hazardous chemicals. Now, research shows an effective bioinspired strategy to reduce such environmental impacts while retaining the benefits of microfabrication.
{"title":"Nature-inspired microfabrication","authors":"Jing Meng, Feng Ryan Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01386-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01386-8","url":null,"abstract":"Electronic, health-care and energy applications largely rely on miniaturized structures, the fabrication of which, although technically beneficial, is energy intensive and requires the use of hazardous chemicals. Now, research shows an effective bioinspired strategy to reduce such environmental impacts while retaining the benefits of microfabrication.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 9","pages":"1088-1089"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141660724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Microfabrication, the process of fabricating small structures usually in micrometre scale, has wide practical applications but confronts sustainability challenges due to the substantial chemical and energy consumption during the patterning and transfer stages. Here we introduce a bioinspired permeable junction approach involving patterning on biopolymer matrices with a salt-assisted photochemical synthesis to advance sustainable microfabrication. This approach leverages an ‘actuator-inhibitor-neutralizer’ process for on-demand adhesion and delamination. Utilizing water as a green actuation agent, our method realizes instantaneous delamination (<1 s) for patterned device transfer, far exceeding the efficacy of traditional technologies. This advancement boosts the roll-to-roll production speed and minimizes the consumption of energy and hazardous chemicals. The combination of sustainable substrates and hazards-free processing substantially lowers greenhouse gas emissions and reduces environmental impacts for device fabrication compared with traditional microfabrication methods. This approach is widely applicable to various device fabrication processes, ranging from bioelectronic devices to catalytic robotics. Overall, this work addresses the sustainability challenges of microfabrication, paving the way to environmentally friendly device fabrication. Microfabrication has an essential role in device fabrication but is accompanied by unfavourable environmental footprint. This study presents a bioinspired permeable junction approach for sustainable microfabrication, which eliminates the use of hazardous chemicals and minimizes energy consumption.
{"title":"A bioinspired permeable junction approach for sustainable device microfabrication","authors":"Chuanwang Yang, Pengju Li, Chen Wei, Aleksander Prominski, Jingcheng Ma, Changxu Sun, Jiping Yue, Zhe Cheng, Jing Zhang, Brennan Ashwood, Wen Li, Jiuyun Shi, Kun Hou, Fengyuan Shi, Philip Griffin, Lihua Jin, Bozhi Tian","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01389-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01389-5","url":null,"abstract":"Microfabrication, the process of fabricating small structures usually in micrometre scale, has wide practical applications but confronts sustainability challenges due to the substantial chemical and energy consumption during the patterning and transfer stages. Here we introduce a bioinspired permeable junction approach involving patterning on biopolymer matrices with a salt-assisted photochemical synthesis to advance sustainable microfabrication. This approach leverages an ‘actuator-inhibitor-neutralizer’ process for on-demand adhesion and delamination. Utilizing water as a green actuation agent, our method realizes instantaneous delamination (<1 s) for patterned device transfer, far exceeding the efficacy of traditional technologies. This advancement boosts the roll-to-roll production speed and minimizes the consumption of energy and hazardous chemicals. The combination of sustainable substrates and hazards-free processing substantially lowers greenhouse gas emissions and reduces environmental impacts for device fabrication compared with traditional microfabrication methods. This approach is widely applicable to various device fabrication processes, ranging from bioelectronic devices to catalytic robotics. Overall, this work addresses the sustainability challenges of microfabrication, paving the way to environmentally friendly device fabrication. Microfabrication has an essential role in device fabrication but is accompanied by unfavourable environmental footprint. This study presents a bioinspired permeable junction approach for sustainable microfabrication, which eliminates the use of hazardous chemicals and minimizes energy consumption.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 9","pages":"1190-1203"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141662649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-09DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01390-y
Dennis Engist, Laura Melissa Guzman, Ashley Larsen, Trevor Church, Frederik Noack
Biodiversity provides essential ecosystem services to agriculture, including pest control and pollination, yet it is declining at an alarming rate, largely due to the agricultural sector. The introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops in the United States marked a major transformation of agricultural production, as over 90% of US corn, soybean and cotton areas are now planted with GM varieties. This shift in crop cultivation has substantially altered crop management practices, most notably the types and quantities of pesticides used. Despite the magnitude of these changes, the impact on biodiversity is still poorly understood. Here we estimate the causal impact of GM crops on bird diversity in the United States and compare bird communities through time in areas with different levels of exposure to GM crops. We find that insectivorous birds benefit from GM crop adoption and that this benefit is largest in cotton. In contrast, herbivorous birds weakly decrease with GM crop adoption. Thus, while GM crop adoption has a small positive effect on overall abundance of birds, the effect is heterogeneous across species groups, with potentially important consequences for bird community composition and associated ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. The effects of genetically modified (GM) crops on biodiversity is not well understood, yet could have important implications due to the many ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to agricultural landscapes. This study evaluates the impact of GM crops on bird diversity in the United States.
{"title":"The impact of genetically modified crops on bird diversity","authors":"Dennis Engist, Laura Melissa Guzman, Ashley Larsen, Trevor Church, Frederik Noack","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01390-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01390-y","url":null,"abstract":"Biodiversity provides essential ecosystem services to agriculture, including pest control and pollination, yet it is declining at an alarming rate, largely due to the agricultural sector. The introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops in the United States marked a major transformation of agricultural production, as over 90% of US corn, soybean and cotton areas are now planted with GM varieties. This shift in crop cultivation has substantially altered crop management practices, most notably the types and quantities of pesticides used. Despite the magnitude of these changes, the impact on biodiversity is still poorly understood. Here we estimate the causal impact of GM crops on bird diversity in the United States and compare bird communities through time in areas with different levels of exposure to GM crops. We find that insectivorous birds benefit from GM crop adoption and that this benefit is largest in cotton. In contrast, herbivorous birds weakly decrease with GM crop adoption. Thus, while GM crop adoption has a small positive effect on overall abundance of birds, the effect is heterogeneous across species groups, with potentially important consequences for bird community composition and associated ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. The effects of genetically modified (GM) crops on biodiversity is not well understood, yet could have important implications due to the many ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to agricultural landscapes. This study evaluates the impact of GM crops on bird diversity in the United States.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 9","pages":"1149-1159"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141666101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-09DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01391-x
Comparison of bird populations in areas with low and high levels of genetically modified (GM) crop adoption in the United States reveals heterogeneous effects of GM crops on different groups of birds. GM crop adoption has a slight positive effect on the abundance and diversity of insectivorous birds, probably due to a reduction in insecticide use, whereas herbivorous birds are weakly negatively affected.
{"title":"Genetically modified crops benefit insectivorous birds but are detrimental to others","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01391-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01391-x","url":null,"abstract":"Comparison of bird populations in areas with low and high levels of genetically modified (GM) crop adoption in the United States reveals heterogeneous effects of GM crops on different groups of birds. GM crop adoption has a slight positive effect on the abundance and diversity of insectivorous birds, probably due to a reduction in insecticide use, whereas herbivorous birds are weakly negatively affected.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 9","pages":"1090-1091"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141665949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-08DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01372-0
Arnold Rakaj, Luca Grosso, Alessandra Fianchini, Stefano Cataudella
Sea urchin aquaculture represents a promising tool to promote blue economy principles that are geared towards the sustainable production of low-trophic-level organisms with high market and nutritional value. However, although sea urchin aquaculture has been practised for several decades, this sector has not yet achieved sustainable production and large-scale development outside China, mainly due to problems linked with long-term rearing cycles of most commercial sea urchin species. Here we present a method of sea urchin caviar production, called ‘raking’, that represents a technological advancement both in terms of the production approach and the final product. Raking is a no-kill method for the harvesting of caviar (sea urchin eggs) from female-only batches, meaning that the same sea urchins are used through several production cycles (three per year). Raking was compared with a traditional gonad enhancement method (known as ‘bulking’, where gonads are the final market product), and it proved to be more profitable through multi-cycle production, more sustainable without needing to kill the sea urchins to obtain the market product and able to overcome important biological and economic constraints of traditional sea urchin aquaculture. Sea urchin gonads are high-demand culinary delicacies, and depleted wild populations of these echinoderms have spurred efforts to culture them sustainably. This study presents a sea urchin aquaculture method that produces ‘caviar’ made of eggs produced by female batches, without needing to kill the sea urchins.
{"title":"A sustainable no-kill sea urchin aquaculture method to obtain caviar","authors":"Arnold Rakaj, Luca Grosso, Alessandra Fianchini, Stefano Cataudella","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01372-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01372-0","url":null,"abstract":"Sea urchin aquaculture represents a promising tool to promote blue economy principles that are geared towards the sustainable production of low-trophic-level organisms with high market and nutritional value. However, although sea urchin aquaculture has been practised for several decades, this sector has not yet achieved sustainable production and large-scale development outside China, mainly due to problems linked with long-term rearing cycles of most commercial sea urchin species. Here we present a method of sea urchin caviar production, called ‘raking’, that represents a technological advancement both in terms of the production approach and the final product. Raking is a no-kill method for the harvesting of caviar (sea urchin eggs) from female-only batches, meaning that the same sea urchins are used through several production cycles (three per year). Raking was compared with a traditional gonad enhancement method (known as ‘bulking’, where gonads are the final market product), and it proved to be more profitable through multi-cycle production, more sustainable without needing to kill the sea urchins to obtain the market product and able to overcome important biological and economic constraints of traditional sea urchin aquaculture. Sea urchin gonads are high-demand culinary delicacies, and depleted wild populations of these echinoderms have spurred efforts to culture them sustainably. This study presents a sea urchin aquaculture method that produces ‘caviar’ made of eggs produced by female batches, without needing to kill the sea urchins.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 8","pages":"1038-1047"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141667695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-07-08DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01378-8
We present a sea urchin aquaculture method called raking. Unlike traditional methods in which the entire gonad is the final product, thereby requiring sea urchin killing, eggs are the final product in raking. As killing of sea urchins is not necessary, several production cycles are possible with this method, enabling sustainable echinoculture.
{"title":"An innovative, sustainable, no-kill sea urchin aquaculture method","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01378-8","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01378-8","url":null,"abstract":"We present a sea urchin aquaculture method called raking. Unlike traditional methods in which the entire gonad is the final product, thereby requiring sea urchin killing, eggs are the final product in raking. As killing of sea urchins is not necessary, several production cycles are possible with this method, enabling sustainable echinoculture.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 8","pages":"954-955"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141668575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Quartz is classified as a group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Atmospheric emissions of respirable quartz in particulate matter released from industrial activities are important for evaluating human exposure. Here we quantified the mass concentrations of quartz as a constituent of particulate matter collected from 118 full-scale industrial plants, comprising 13 main source categories, with the aim of identifying primary industrial contributors. The sources with the highest quartz mass concentrations are waste incineration and electric-arc furnace steelmaking, with average values of 16,924 μg g−1 and 12,005 μg g−1, respectively. Total atmospheric emissions of quartz from the investigated industrial sources are 24,581.3 t. Cement kiln co-processing solid waste, coking plants, pig-iron blast furnaces, iron-ore sintering and steelmaking electric-arc furnaces were identified as the major industrial sources contributing to quartz emissions in China. Quartz emissions arising from the 13 industrial sources could generate up to 77.2% increment in cancer risk for China owing to the high density of these activities. These results provide important fundamental data to assess exposure risks in the general population and enhance sustainability of industrial development. Quartz is a well-known carcinogen of particular concern to industrial workers exposed to particulate quartz. Industrial atmospheric emissions across multiple sectors, however, are found to include respirable quartz, posing a threat to the public health of surrounding populations.
{"title":"Atmospheric emissions of respirable quartz from industrial activities in China","authors":"Qiuting Yang, Guorui Liu, Lili Yang, Jianghui Yun, Xiaoyue Zhang, Chenyan Zhao, Minghui Zheng, Guibin Jiang","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01388-6","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01388-6","url":null,"abstract":"Quartz is classified as a group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Atmospheric emissions of respirable quartz in particulate matter released from industrial activities are important for evaluating human exposure. Here we quantified the mass concentrations of quartz as a constituent of particulate matter collected from 118 full-scale industrial plants, comprising 13 main source categories, with the aim of identifying primary industrial contributors. The sources with the highest quartz mass concentrations are waste incineration and electric-arc furnace steelmaking, with average values of 16,924 μg g−1 and 12,005 μg g−1, respectively. Total atmospheric emissions of quartz from the investigated industrial sources are 24,581.3 t. Cement kiln co-processing solid waste, coking plants, pig-iron blast furnaces, iron-ore sintering and steelmaking electric-arc furnaces were identified as the major industrial sources contributing to quartz emissions in China. Quartz emissions arising from the 13 industrial sources could generate up to 77.2% increment in cancer risk for China owing to the high density of these activities. These results provide important fundamental data to assess exposure risks in the general population and enhance sustainability of industrial development. Quartz is a well-known carcinogen of particular concern to industrial workers exposed to particulate quartz. Industrial atmospheric emissions across multiple sectors, however, are found to include respirable quartz, posing a threat to the public health of surrounding populations.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 9","pages":"1120-1127"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141669069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Globalization intensifies the demand for agricultural products from specific regions, resulting in intensive farming practices that can exacerbate local cropland soil phosphorus (P) depletion, thereby undermining long-term food security. By integrating global data on international trade and soil-P reserves and deficits from 1970 to 2017, we demonstrate that the contribution of trade to global soil-P deficits increased from 7% in 1970 to 18% in 2017, with 54% of this impact driven by non-food consumption. Over these 48 years, developing regions exported a net of 5.8 Mt P through agricultural trade, resulting in a net increase of 13 Mt soil-P deficits. These deficits are primarily concentrated in regions with low soil-P reserves, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, thereby heightening the risks of soil-P depletion in these areas and amplifying long-term concerns about food security. This insight underscores the imperative for a broader perspective on food security—prioritizing national soil productivity rather than merely boosting the availability of food in the global market when shaping global trade policies. The growing global demand for agricultural products from specific regions leads to farming practices that can exacerbate soil-phosphorus depletion, with consequences for long-term food security. This study quantifies the contribution of trade to global soil-phosphorus deficits from 1970 to 2017.
{"title":"Impacts of global trade on cropland soil-phosphorus depletion and food security","authors":"Kunyu Niu, Mengyu Li, Manfred Lenzen, Thomas Wiedmann, Xudong Han, Shuqin Jin, Arunima Malik, Baojing Gu","doi":"10.1038/s41893-024-01385-9","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41893-024-01385-9","url":null,"abstract":"Globalization intensifies the demand for agricultural products from specific regions, resulting in intensive farming practices that can exacerbate local cropland soil phosphorus (P) depletion, thereby undermining long-term food security. By integrating global data on international trade and soil-P reserves and deficits from 1970 to 2017, we demonstrate that the contribution of trade to global soil-P deficits increased from 7% in 1970 to 18% in 2017, with 54% of this impact driven by non-food consumption. Over these 48 years, developing regions exported a net of 5.8 Mt P through agricultural trade, resulting in a net increase of 13 Mt soil-P deficits. These deficits are primarily concentrated in regions with low soil-P reserves, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, thereby heightening the risks of soil-P depletion in these areas and amplifying long-term concerns about food security. This insight underscores the imperative for a broader perspective on food security—prioritizing national soil productivity rather than merely boosting the availability of food in the global market when shaping global trade policies. The growing global demand for agricultural products from specific regions leads to farming practices that can exacerbate soil-phosphorus depletion, with consequences for long-term food security. This study quantifies the contribution of trade to global soil-phosphorus deficits from 1970 to 2017.","PeriodicalId":19056,"journal":{"name":"Nature Sustainability","volume":"7 9","pages":"1128-1140"},"PeriodicalIF":25.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141673868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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