Meeting future energy demands in Africa will require expanded hydropower capacity, but the dams’ impacts on rivers, their emissions and alternative energy options call for careful planning. This study performs multi-objective energy system modelling for more sustainable dam expansion from the present to 2050.

National and international policies have aimed to protect the quality of freshwater by mitigating agricultural nitrogen emissions. However, the nitrogen legacy in groundwater must be accounted for when mitigating the impacts of nitrogen in watersheds.

Narco trafficking and subsequent counter-drug interdiction strategies can lead to loss of biodiverse forests, which are important habitats for resident and migratory bird species. This study evaluates how such activities can threaten the bird habitat in Central American forests.

Reducing groundwater extraction to sustainable levels may have detrimental impacts on global food security. Improving rainfed water use efficiency and investments in agricultural research and development can ensure sustainable groundwater resources and food security into the future.

Deforestation, which can have detrimental consequences for native ecosystems and result in increased greenhouse gas emissions, is driven by different sources of economic demand. This study evaluates the role of local and domestic demand driving deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon.

Renewable energy from reservoir-based hydropower plants can have high GHG emissions. Integrating floating solar photovoltaics on hydropower reservoirs can help offset GHG emissions from a large proportion of hydropower facilities.

Getting coastal residents to understand the risk of rising sea levels can be difficult. This study finds that showing individuals top-down maps of future sea-level boundaries can be counterproductive to making residents concerned about climate impacts.

Mitigation efforts to protect agricultural productivity against flooding focus on areas with high-frequency floods. However, agricultural regions with low-frequency floods experience a larger proportion of flood impacts, highlighting the urgency of prioritizing mitigation efforts in these regions.

While land use is often seen as a function of governance and economics, the role of culture is largely understudied. This study examines the cultural dynamics that play a role in a wide range of land-use outcomes globally

Reducing groundwater extraction to sustainable levels may have detrimental impacts on global food security. Improving rainfed water use efficiency and investments in agricultural research and development can ensure sustainable groundwater resources and food security into the future.

Photocatalytic water splitting could be used to sustainably produce hydrogen. To assess its performance, solar-to-hydrogen energy conversion efficiency is the most important metric. Here, we discuss the common problems in reporting this metric and propose the use of water displacement to accurately measure the solar-to-hydrogen efficiency.

The pervasive contamination of ecosystems with active pharmaceutical ingredients poses a serious threat to biodiversity, ecosystem services and public health. Urgent action is needed to design greener drugs that maintain efficacy but also minimize environmental impact.

Transitioning to a more sustainable economic system hinges on creating jobs in support of greener activities, with challenges for incumbent workers. A suite of articles highlights the need for more sustainable jobs and how to overcome the associated research gaps and political obstacles.

Although research has consistently shown that managing natural resources more sustainably is both feasible and beneficial for jobs and livelihoods, the perception that the green transition leads to job losses prevails. We recommend strategies for wider and better communicating evidence, to decision-makers across the board, about what is needed to reap job benefits from a green transition.

Scaling up adoption of green technologies in energy, mobility, construction, manufacturing and agriculture is imperative to set countries on a sustainable development path, but that hinges on having the right workforce, argues Jonatan Pinkse.

Apprehensions about job losses in incumbent industries can hold up sustainability transformations unless policymakers bolster efforts towards job reskilling programmes, argues Marko Hekkert.