The impacts of nano- and microplastics (<100 nm and <5 mm, respectively) on terrestrial systems is to the present largely unexplored. Plastic particles are likely to accumulate in these systems ...primarily by the application of sewage sludge. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effects of three sizes of plastic particles (50, 500, and 4800 nm) on a terrestrial plant (cress; Lepidium sativum), using a standardized 72 h bioassay. Cress seeds were exposed to five different concentrations of plastics, ranging from 103 to 107 particles mL−1. Germination rate was significantly reduced after 8 h of exposure for all three sizes of plastics, with increased adverse effect with increasing plastic sizes. Seeds exposed to 4800 nm microplastics showed a germination rate decline from 78% in control to 17% in the highest exposure. No difference in germination rate occurred after 24 h of exposure, regardless of the size of the plastic used. Significant differences in root growth were observed after 24 h, but not after 48 or 72 h of exposure. Impacts on germination are likely due to physical blockage of the pores in the seed capsule by microplastics as shown by confocal microscopy of fluorescent microplastics. In later stages, the microplastics particularly accumulated on the root hairs. This is the first detailed study on the effect of nano- and microplastics on a vascular, terrestrial plant, and our results indicate short-term and transient adverse effects.
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•Terrestrial systems accumulate nano- and microplastics but are understudied.•We exposed a vascular plant to three different sized plastics (50, 500 and 4800 nm).•Exposure to plastics caused significant impacts on germination and root growth.•Late germination is likely related to accumulation of microplastics on seed case.•The observed effects were short-term and transient.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment, are frequently ingested by organisms, and may potentially cause harm. A range of studies have found significant levels of microplastics in beach sand. ...However, there is a considerable amount of methodological variability among these studies. Methodological variation currently limits comparisons as there is no standard procedure for sampling or extraction of microplastics. We identify key sampling and extraction procedures across the literature through a detailed review. We find that sampling depth, sampling location, number of repeat extractions, and settling times are the critical parameters of variation. Next, using a case-study we determine whether and to what extent these differences impact study outcomes. By investigating the common practices identified in the literature with the case-study, we provide a standard operating procedure for sampling and extracting microplastics from beach sand.
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•Significant variation in methods exists when quantifying microplastics on beaches.•These variations impede efforts to compare across studies.•A literature review was used to identify key areas which require standardization.•A case-study was used to determine impacts of these key methodological variations.•Based on the outcomes, a standard operating procedure was developed.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The energy transition will require a rapid deployment of renewable energy (RE) and electric vehicles (EVs) where other transit modes are unavailable. EV batteries could complement RE generation by ...providing short-term grid services. However, estimating the market opportunity requires an understanding of many socio-technical parameters and constraints. We quantify the global EV battery capacity available for grid storage using an integrated model incorporating future EV battery deployment, battery degradation, and market participation. We include both in-use and end-of-vehicle-life use phases and find a technical capacity of 32-62 terawatt-hours by 2050. Low participation rates of 12%-43% are needed to provide short-term grid storage demand globally. Participation rates fall below 10% if half of EV batteries at end-of-vehicle-life are used as stationary storage. Short-term grid storage demand could be met as early as 2030 across most regions. Our estimates are generally conservative and offer a lower bound of future opportunities.
Here we present the large-scale distribution of microplastic contamination in beach sediment across Europe. Sediment samples were collected from 23 locations across 13 countries by citizen ...scientists, and analysed using a standard operating procedure. We found significant variability in the concentrations of microplastics, ranging from 72±24 to 1512±187 microplastics per kg of dry sediment, with high variability within sampling locations. Three hotspots of microplastic accumulation (>700 microplastics per kg of dry sediment) were found. There was limited variability in the physico-chemical characteristics of the plastics across sampling locations. The majority of the microplastics were fibrous, <1mm in size, and blue/black in colour. In addition, using Raman spectrometry we identified particles as polyester, polyethylene, and polypropylene. Our research is the first large spatial-scale analysis of microplastics on European beaches giving insights into the nature and extent of the microplastic challenge.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The circular economy model aims to reduce the consumption of virgin materials by increasing the time materials remain in use while transitioning economic activities to sectors with lower material ...intensities. Circular economy concepts have largely been focussed on the role of businesses and institutions, yet consumer changes can have a large impact. In a more circular economy consumers often become users-they purchase access to goods and services rather than physical products. Other consumer engagement includes purchasing renewable energy, recycling and using repair and maintenance services etc. However, there are few studies on whether consumers actually make these sorts of consumption choices at large scale, and what impacts arise from these choices on life-cycle material consumption. Here we examine what types of households exhibit circular consumption habits, and whether such habits are reflected in their material footprints. We link the Eurostat Household Budget Survey 2010 with a global input-output model and assess the material footprints of 189 800 households across 24 European countries, making the results highly generalizable in the European context. Our results reveal that different types of households (young, seniors, families etc) adopt different circular features in their consumption behaviour. Furthermore, we show that due to rebound effects, the circular consumption habits investigated have a weak connection to total material footprint. Our findings highlight the limitations of circular consumption in today's economic systems, and the need for stronger policy incentives, such as shifting taxation from renewable resources and labour to non-renewable resources.
Building stock growth around the world drives extensive material consumption and environmental impacts. Future impacts will be dependent on the level and rate of socioeconomic development, along with ...material use and supply strategies. Here we evaluate material-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for residential and commercial buildings along with their reduction potentials in 26 global regions by 2060. For a middle-of-the-road baseline scenario, building material-related emissions see an increase of 3.5 to 4.6 Gt CO2eq yr-1 between 2020-2060. Low- and lower-middle-income regions see rapid emission increase from 750 Mt (22% globally) in 2020 and 2.4 Gt (51%) in 2060, while higher-income regions shrink in both absolute and relative terms. Implementing several material efficiency strategies together in a High Efficiency (HE) scenario could almost half the baseline emissions. Yet, even in this scenario, the building material sector would require double its current proportional share of emissions to meet a 1.5 °C-compatible target.
China has strong policies to increase consumption and rebalance the economy away from capital investments. Since the total household carbon emissions (HCEs) grew 19% between 2007 and 2012, the study ...of driving forces from the spatial perspective provides insights into meeting these policy goals. To understand how to reduce HCEs across China, we analyze the driving factors of urban and rural household carbon emissions (HCEs) in 30 provinces in 2012. We distinguish two emission sources: direct (e.g. combustion of coal in the home), and indirect (emissions occurring along the supply chain of goods and services consumed by households), and analyze five factors for both urban/rural and direct/indirect emissions: population, income per capita, emission factors (emission improvements in technology), energy/consumption structure (changes in consumption), and energy/consumption intensity. Moreover, we aggregate the first two factors as the ‘scale’ effect and the latter three as the ‘effort’ effect, and explore their decoupling relationship. We find that the scale effect from income and population was the major driver of high urban HCEs in most of coastal provinces, up to 222% higher than the national average. The high HCEs in non-coastal industrial provinces (e.g. Inner Mongolia) were due to the limited improvements in the effort effect, specifically limited technology improvements, up to 101% than the national average. Almost all urban areas in coastal provinces achieved strong or weak decoupling, with the northeastern, central, western provinces witnessing negative decoupling. Urban areas in the main industrial provinces (Hebei, Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia) showed the largest negative decoupling with values of −2.2, −3.0 and −2.7, respectively, due to a larger share of coal consumption and higher energy intensity within urban areas. Therefore, under the background of regional convergence, making larger efforts to reducing the HCEs in non-coastal provinces is critical for promoting a low-carbon transition in the household consumption.
•Drivers of household carbon emissions (HCEs) were spatially analyzed.•Coastal urban areas have HCEs up to 222% above average due to scale effects.•Industrial provinces have HCEs up to 101% above average due to effort effects.•Strong and weak decoupling were seen in urbanized coastal areas.•Northeastern, central, western provinces saw negative emissions decoupling.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Dietary choices drive both health and environmental outcomes. Information on diets come from many sources, with nationally recommended diets (NRDs) by governmental or similar advisory bodies the most ...authoritative. Little or no attention is placed on the environmental impacts within NRDs. Here we quantify the impact of nation-specific NRDs, compared with an average diet in 37 nations, representing 64% of global population. We focus on greenhouse gases (GHGs), eutrophication, and land use because these have impacts reaching or exceeding planetary boundaries. We show that compared with average diets, NRDs in high-income nations are associated with reductions in GHG, eutrophication, and land use from 13.0 to 24.8%, 9.8 to 21.3%, and 5.7 to 17.6%, respectively. In upper-middle–income nations, NRDs are associated with slight decrease in impacts of 0.8–12.2%, 7.7–19.4%, and 7.2–18.6%. In poorer middle-income nations, impacts increase by 12.4–17.0%, 24.5–31.9%, and 8.8–14.8%. The reduced environmental impact in high-income countries is driven by reductions in calories (∼54% of effect) and a change in composition (∼46%). The increased environmental impacts of NRDs in low- and middle-income nations are associated with increased intake in animal products. Uniform adoption of NRDs across these nations would result in reductions of 0.19–0.53 Gt CO₂ eq·a−1, 4.32–10.6 Gt
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eq·a−1, and 1.5–2.8 million km², while providing the health cobenefits of adopting an NRD. As a small number of dietary guidelines are beginning to incorporate more general environmental concerns, we anticipate that this work will provide a standardized baseline for future work to optimize recommended diets further.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Consumption-based carbon accounts (CBCAs) track how final demand in a region causes carbon emissions elsewhere due to supply chains in the global economic network, taking into account international ...trade. Despite the importance of CBCAs as an approach for understanding and quantifying responsibilities in climate mitigation efforts, very little is known of their uncertainties. Here we use five global multiregional input-output (MRIO) databases to empirically calibrate a stochastic multivariate model of the global economy and its GHG emissions in order to identify the main drivers of uncertainty in global CBCAs. We find that the uncertainty of country CBCAs varies between 2 and 16% and that the uncertainty of emissions does not decrease significantly with their size. We find that the bias of ignoring correlations in the data (that is, independent sampling) is significant, with uncertainties being systematically underestimated. We find that both CBCAs and source MRIO tables exhibit strong correlations between the sector-level data of different countries. Finally, we find that the largest contributors to global CBCA uncertainty are the electricity sector data globally and Chinese national data in particular. We anticipate that this work will provide practitioners an approach to understand CBCA uncertainties and researchers compiling MRIOs a guide to prioritize uncertainty reduction efforts.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
International trade plays a critical role in global food security, with global consumption having highly localized environmental impacts. It has been difficult to gain insights into these effects due ...to the diversity of food production, and complexity of supply chains in international trade. We present a Spatially-explicit Multi-Regional Input-Output (SMRIO) model which couples primary crops and livestock at a high spatial resolution with a global Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) model. We then identify hotspots (the most significant production regions) for primary crops and livestock driven by international consumption. We present the method and data behind this approach, and provide illustrative case studies for Indonesian palm oil and Brazilian soy and beef production. Regionally, China is the largest primary crop consumer, while the EU28 is the largest livestock consumer. Primary crops and livestock hotspots are highly unequal, and the embodied primary crops and livestock for high-income countries are distributed over larger areas when compared to lower-income countries since high-income countries have more numerous trade links. Identified hotspots could allow for increased cooperation between consumers (high-income countries) and producers (lower-income countries) to improve sustainability programs for global food security.
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•The first spatial assessment of crops and livestock embodied in trade.•A road network served to allocate between domestic consumption and exports.•Food production for high-income countries is spread over larger areas.•Per-capita food consumption in high-income countries far exceeds tentative targets.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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