Environments along the coast of Greenland are rapidly changing under the influence of a warming climate in the Arctic. To better understand the changes in the coastal environments, we performed researches in the Qaanaaq region in northwestern Greenland as a part of the ArCS (Arctic Challenge for Sustainability) Project. Mass loss of ice caps and marine-terminating outlet glaciers were quantified by field and satellite observations. Measurements and sampling in fjords revealed the important role of glacial meltwater discharge in marine ecosystems.
This paper presents challenges for water security in the three largest riverine islands in Asia, a socio-hydrology approach to manage water scarcity and human well-being, and an adaptive management cycle to implement socio-hydrology in the field.
Urbanisation involves major changes in environmental conditions such as light, temperature, humidity and noise levels, but the effect of urbanisation on soil conditions and soil biodiversity has received less attention. The reported effects on species richness across a rural to urban landscapes are not unequivocal. Positive, negative and neutral effects have been found, but what is causing this ambiguity in the relationship between species richness and urbanisation is poorly understood.
Refuges and refugia are important to conservation management because of their potential to protect species from difficult-to-manage threats such as changing climate, extreme events (e.g., drought, fire) and biotic threats (e.g., disease, invasive species). To provide conservation managers with an evidence-based approach to identifying refuges and refugia, we ask: which places have been observed to function as refuges/refugia, with results reported in the scientific literature? We systematically reviewed the past 20 years of research into refuges/refugia.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were designed to address interactions between the economy, society, and the biosphere. However, indicators used for assessing progress toward the goals do not account for these interactions. To understand the potential implications of this compartmentalized assessment framework, we explore progress evaluations toward SDG 14 (Life below Water) and intersecting social goals presented in submissions to the UN High-Level Political Forum.
Global biodiversity targets have far-reaching implications for nature conservation worldwide. Scenarios and models hold unfulfilled promise for ensuring such targets are well founded and implemented; here, we review how they can and should inform the Aichi Targets of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and their reformulation. They offer two clear benefits: providing a scientific basis for the wording and quantitative elements of targets; and identifying synergies and trade-offs by accounting for interactions between targets and the actions needed to achieve them.
All organisms respond to environmental cues that allow them to organize the timing and duration of life history stages that make up their life cycles. Superimposed on this predictable life cycle are unpredictable events that have the potential to be stressful. Environmental and social stresses have deleterious effects on life history stages such as migration, reproductive function and molt in vertebrates. Global climate change, human disturbance and endocrine disruption from pollutants are increasingly likely to pose additional stresses that could have a major impact on organisms.
