World Environment Day 2021

World Environment Day is the most renowned day for environmental action. Since 1974, it has been celebrated every year on June 5th, engaging governments, businesses, celebrities and citizens to focus their efforts on a pressing environmental issue.

To mark World Environment Day 2021, Elsevier presents a curated list of free access journal articles and book chapters in support of this year's theme - Ecosystem Restoration.

People and the planet are only as healthy as the ecosystems we all depend on. Bringing degraded ecosystems back to life – for example by planting trees, cleaning up riverbanks, or simply giving nature space to recover – increases their benefits to society and biodiversity. Without reviving ecosystems, we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals or the Paris Climate Agreement. But ecosystems are also complex and highly varied, and their restoration needs careful planning and patient implementation.

World Environment Day 2021 also marks the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. The UN Decade runs from 2021 through 2030, which is also the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals and the timeline scientists have identified as the last chance to prevent catastrophic climate change. It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems, and restore them to achieve global goals. Only with healthy ecosystems can we enhance people’s livelihoods, counteract climate change, and stop the collapse of biodiversity.

Elsevier, Food Quality and Preference, Volume 93, October 2021
In view of all kinds of sustainability concerns related to our current diet, it is essential to gain a good understanding of the sustainability motives consumers have for selecting their food. A comprehensive and validated scale to measure sustainability motives within the full range of food choice motives could contribute to this understanding, especially as sustainability is a multi-faceted concept in which the different aspects can sometimes be conflicting.
Elsevier, Geography and Sustainability, Volume 2, June 2021
After 10 years of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, Japan decided on 13 April 2021 to release the nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. It is apparent that Japan has chosen the most cost-efficient way to deal with the contaminated water, however, great opposition and concerns have been aroused internationally due to the harmful ecotoxicological features of radioactive materials. Here we analyze the ecological impacts caused by the nuclear accident and the potential impacts of releasing the nuclear wastewater into the ocean.
Elsevier, Geography and Sustainability, Volume 1, March 2020
Soil organic carbon (SOC) in croplands is a key property of soil quality for ensuring food security and agricultural sustainability, and also plays a central role in the global carbon (C) budget. When managed sustainably, soils may play a critical role in mitigating climate change by sequestering C and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, the magnitude and spatio-temporal patterns of global cropland SOC are far from well constrained due to high land surface heterogeneity, complicated mechanisms, and multiple influencing factors.
Elsevier, Geography and Sustainability, Volume 1, March 2020
Agricultural landscapes cultivated in hilly and mountainous areas, often with terracing practice, could represent for some regions historical heritages and cultural ecosystem services. For this reason, they deserve to be protected. The complex morphology that characterises them, however, makes these areas intrinsically susceptible to hydrogeological instability, such as soil loss due to surface erosion or more severe mass movements. We can identify three major critical factors for such landscapes.
Elsevier, Materials Today Energy, Volume 19, March 2021
The fast-expanding electric vehicle market demands eco-friendly, high-performance, and low-cost energy storage systems. Lithium-sulfur battery with higher theoretical specific capacity and lower cost is regarded as a promising successor to lithium-ion battery. However, lithium-sulfur battery's polysulfide shuttling and lithium degradation have hindered its practical applications. In this study, cellulose fibers (CFs) were extracted from recycled paper hardboards by a simple alkaline treatment and then coated onto polypropylene separators by vacuum filtration.
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Materials and the Environment, Third Edition: Chapter 11 - Renewable materials, natural materials, Volume , 2021

This book chapter advances SDGs 9 and 12 by exploring whether renewable materials, derived wholly or in part from nature, can play a larger role in the engineering economy of the 21st century.
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Materials and the Environment (Third Edition): Chapter 2 - Resource consumption and its drivers, Volume , 2021.

This book chapter advances SDG 12 by summarizing the orders of magnitude of the flow of materials, energy and water that material production entails.
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Encyclopedia of Renewable and Sustainable Materials: Nanomaterial for CO2 Sequestration, Volume 3, 2020

This book chapter advances SDGs 7, 13, and 12 by describing promising nanomaterials for the capture of CO2 emissions. Since it will take time for the world to rely solely on renewables, nanomaterials for carbon capture can help protect the atmosphere from harmful greenhouse gases in the interim.
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Advances in Botanical Research, Volume 88, 2018

This book chapter advances SDGs 13 and 12 through its discussion of the potential contributions of epigenetics to cope with global climate change and regulate various developmental processes.
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Soil Health and Intensification of Agroecosystems, Volume , 22 March 2017

This book chapter advances SDGs 15 and 2 by discussing basic soil physical, chemical, and biological properties and explores the interrelationships between different soil properties and functions as essential building blocks for a healthy functioning soil system.

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