Large-scale Environmental Changes Research Articles

Cenozoic climate change and the evolution of North American mammalian predator ecomorphology

Abstract The trend of global cooling across the Cenozoic transformed the North American landscape from closed forest to more open grasslands, resulting in dietary adaptations in herbivores in response to shifting resources. In contrast, the material properties of the predator food source (muscle, skin, and bone) have remained constant over this transition, suggesting a corresponding lack of change in predator dietary adaptations. We investigated the North American mammalian predator fossil record using a tooth-shape metric and body mass, predicting that the former would exhibit stability. Instead, we found that mean molar morphology became more blade-like, with our tooth-shape metric sharply increasing in the late Eocene and remaining high from the Oligocene onward. Subsequent tests in extant carnivorans reveal taxa with more bladelike teeth are prevalent in more open environments. Our results reveal an unexpected functional shift among North American predators in response to large-scale environmental changes across the Cenozoic.

Shellfishing, sea levels, and the earliest Native American villages (5000–3800 yrs. BP) of the South Atlantic Coast of the U.S

Shell ring archaeological sites are one of the most visible site types along the lower South Atlantic Coast of the United States. These cultural sites are large, circular to arcuate piles of mollusk shells with some reaching over three meters in elevation and over 100 m in diameter. They are comprised largely of mollusk shells (e.g., Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica), but also contain early pottery, nonhuman faunal remains, and other artifacts. Our work establishes that they represent the earliest widespread Native American villages occupied year-round in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. Significantly, our results from sea-level modelling and isotope geochemistry on mollusks establish that the inhabitants of these earliest villages (ca. 5000–3800 yrs. BP) lived within a fluctuating coastal environment, harvested certain resources year-round, and targeted diverse habitats across the estuaries. Both the growth and decline of these earliest villages are associated with a concomitant rise and lowering of sea level that impacted the productivity of the oyster reef fishery along the South Atlantic Coast. Despite these large-scale environmental changes, this research indicates that Native American fishing villages persisted along the coast for over 1000 years.

Among-species variation in six decades of changing migration timings explained through ecology, life-history and local migratory abundance.

Species exploiting seasonal environments must alter timings of key life-history events in response to large-scale climatic changes in order to maintain trophic synchrony with required resources. Yet, substantial among-species variation in long-term phenological changes has been observed. Advancing from simply describing such variation towards predicting future phenological responses requires studies that rigorously quantify and explain variation in the direction and magnitude of changing timings across diverse species in relation to key ecological and life-history variables. Accordingly, we fitted multi-quantile regressions to 59 years of multi-species data on spring and autumn bird migration timings through northern Scotland. We demonstrate substantial variation in changes in timings among 72 species, and tested whether such variation can be explained by species ecology, life-history and changes in local abundance. Consistent with predictions, species that advanced their migration timing in one or both seasons had more seasonally restricted diet types, fewer suitable breeding habitat types, shorter generation lengths and capability to produce multiple offspring broods per year. In contrast, species with less seasonally restricted diet types and that produce single annual offspring broods, showed no change. Meanwhile, contrary to prediction, long-distance and short-distance migrants advanced migration timings similarly. Changes in migration timing also varied with changes in local migratory abundance, such that species with increasing seasonal abundance apparently altered their migration timing, whilst species with decreasing abundance did not. Such patterns broadly concur with expectation given adaptive changes in migration timing. However, we demonstrate that similar patterns can be generated by numerical sampling given changing local abundances. Any apparent phenology-abundance relationships should, therefore, be carefully validated and interpreted. Overall, our results show that migrant bird species with differing ecologies and life-histories showed systematically differing phenological changes over six decades contextualised by large-scale environmental changes, potentially facilitating future predictions and altering temporal dynamics of seasonal species co-occurrences.

Local surface warming assessment in response to vegetation shifts over arid lands of Central Asia (2001−2020)

The Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) was established to address the large-scale environmental change across this region. Regardless of the increasingly insightful literature addressing vegetation change across Central Asia, the biogeophysical warming effects of vegetation shifts still need to be clarified. To contribute, the utility of robust satellite observation is explored to evaluate the surface warming effects of vegetation shifts across Central Asia, which is among NEEPSI's hotspots. We estimated an average increase of +1.9 °C in daytime local surface temperature and + 1.5 °C in the nighttime due to vegetation shift (2001–2020). Meanwhile, the mean local latent heat increased by 4.65Wm−2, following the mild reduction of emitted longwave radiation (−0.8Wm−2). We found that vegetation shifts led to local surface warming with a bright surface, noting that the average air surface temperature was revealed to have increased significantly (2001–2020). This signal was driven mainly by agricultural expansion in western Kazakhstan stretching to Tajikistan and Xinjiang, then deforestation confined in Tajikistan, southeast Kazakhstan, and the northwestern edge of Xinjiang, and finally, grassland encroachment occurred massively in the west to central Kazakhstan. These findings address the latest information on Central Asia's vegetation shifts that may be substantial in landscape change mitigation plans.

Cosmic evolution of FRI and FRII sources out to z = 2.5

Context. Radio-loud active galactic nuclei (RLAGN) play an important role in the evolution of galaxies through the effects on their environment. The two major morphological classes are core-bright (FRI) and edge-bright (FRII) sources. With the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR), we can now compare the FRI and FRII evolution down to lower flux densities and with larger samples than before. Aims. Our aim is to examine the cosmic space density evolution for FRIs and FRIIs by analyzing their space density evolution between L150 ∼ 1024.5 W Hz−1 and L150 ∼ 1028.5 W Hz−1 and up to z = 2.5. In particular, we look at the space density enhancements and compare the FRI and FRII evolution with the total RLAGN evolution. Methods. We constructed radio luminosity functions (RLFs) from FRI and FRII catalogues based on recent data from LOFAR at 150 MHz to study the space densities as a function of radio luminosity and redshift. These catalogues contain over 100 times the number of FRIs with associated redshifts greater than z = 0.3, compared to the most recent FRI/FRII RLF study. To derive the maximum distance according to which a source can be classified and to correct for detection limits, we conducted simulations of how sources appear across a range of redshifts. Results. Our RLFs do not show any sharp transitions between the space density evolution of FRI and FRII sources as a function of radio luminosity and redshift. We report a space density enhancement from low to high redshift for FRI and FRII sources brighter than L150 ∼ 1027 W Hz−1. Furthermore, while we observe a tentative decrease in the space densities of FRIs with luminosities below L150 ∼ 1026 W Hz−1 and at redshifts beyond z = 0.8, this may be due to residual selection biases. The FRI/FRII space density ratio does not appear to evolve strongly as a function of radio luminosity and redshift. Conclusions. We argue that the measured space density enhancements above L150 ∼ 1027 W Hz−1 are related to the higher gas availability in the earlier, denser universe. The constant FRI/FRII space density ratio evolution as a function of radio luminosity and redshift suggests that the jet-disruption of FRIs might be primarily caused by events occurring on scales within the host galaxy, rather than being driven by changes in the overall large-scale environment. The remaining selection biases in our results also highlight the need to resolve more sources at angular scales below 40″, thereby strengthening the motivation for further developing and automating the calibration and imaging pipeline of LOFAR data to produce images at a sub-arcsecond resolution.

Beyond Net-Zero: Societal Transformations towards Climate Positive Futures

“Addressing the climate challenge presents a golden opportunity to promote prosperity, security and a brighter future for all.”Ban Ki-Moon, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Humanity is pushing the earth system beyond its natural limits. Rapid population growth and exponential consumption exert synergistic and compounded strains on our planet. Evidence of the untenable nature of this strain abounds, in the form of accelerated, widespread and intensifying climate change (United Nations, 2021), drastic reduction in biodiversity, overexploitation and depletion of natural resources, and degradation of ecosystems. Calculated by the Global Footprint Network, the Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) succinctly and illustratively captures this divergence between humanity’s ecological footprint and earth’s biocapacity. The EOD marks the point in the year when humanity’s demand for resources in a given year exceeds what the earth can replenish in that same year, and has come earlier and earlier since first calculated in 1971. In 2023, it fell on August 2 (Global Footprint Network), leaving us in an ecological deficit for the remaining part of the year. The science-based planetary boundaries framework developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre is another powerful visualisation of the state of our planetary systems. Their 2023 assessment reports that six of the nine planetary boundaries (e.g. freshwater change, biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows, novels entities such as plastics, etc) have been transgressed, thereby heightening the risk of large-scale, abrupt, and irreversible environmental changes. (continued...)

Everyday Anthropocene and Multispecies Kinship in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island

The Anthropocene, a term increasingly embraced across disciplines, is often used to denote the current geological epoch that signifies the profound impact humans have exerted on the Earth’s geology and ecosystems. This concept challenges the traditional delineation of geological epochs, suggesting that human activity has caused significant environmental changes that are substantial enough to mark the commencement of a new geological era. Central to the Anthropocene theory is the recognition of human-inducedalterations that span across climate change, biodiversity loss, and the transformation of land through deforestation, urbanisation, and agriculture, alongside the proliferation of man-made materials like plastics and concrete.The idea of the ‘everyday Anthropocene’ brings this concept closer to our daily lives, emphasising how ordinary, everyday human actions contribute to these large-scale environmental changes. It recognises that the cumulative effects of daily human activities —such as driving cars, using plastic, consuming energy, and producing waste —play a crucial role in shaping our planet’s future. At the same time, the everyday Anthropocene refers to the ways we experience the effects of environmental changes in our day-to-day lives. This notioncompels us to recognise the Anthropocene not as a distant or abstract epoch but as an immediate reality, manifesting in the climate we experience, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we consume. In her essay, “Climate Change and the Struggle for Genre,” Stephanie LeMenager refers to the ‘everyday Anthropocene’ as “the present tense, lived time of the Anthropocene” that calls for paying attention to what it means to live, day by day, through climate shift and the economic and sociological injuries that underwrite it” (225). She presents this concept as a critique of epochal thinking. The conventional perspective on the Anthropocene as a geological epoch detaches us from the immediate, tangible effects of our actions on the environment and ourselves. Epochs, as large-scale historical markers, can lead to a kind of forgetting, abstracting the very real and ongoing depletion and suffering of living bodies and ecosystems into broad, impersonal spans of time. The everyday Anthropocene, in contrast, calls for attention to “a more granular and personal account” of those living through the anthropogenic changes of our planet (225). She emphasises the importance of recognising and addressing the slow, often unnoticed wear on bodies and environments caused by systemic issues like bio-deregulation and slow violence. She highlights the role of the Anthropocene novel as a medium to focus closely on what it means to live amidst climate change, capturing the day-to-day reality of existing in a world under threat. She views such narratives as tools for preparing and adapting to change, advocating for a re-evaluation of our daily lives and our collective home in a more empathetic and sustainable manner.

Genomic data and ecological niche modeling reveal an unusually slow rate of molecular evolution in the Cretaceous Eupteleaceae.

Living fossils are evidence of long-term sustained ecological success. However, whether living fossils have little molecular changes remains poorly known, particularly in plants. Here, we have introduced a novel method that integrates phylogenomic, comparative genomic, and ecological niche modeling analyses to investigate the rate of molecular evolution of Eupteleaceae, a Cretaceous relict angiosperm family endemic to East Asia. We assembled a high-quality chromosome-level nuclear genome, and the chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes of a member of Eupteleaceae (Euptelea pleiosperma). Our results show that Eupteleaceae is most basal in Ranunculales, the earliest-diverging order in eudicots, and shares an ancient whole-genome duplication event with the other Ranunculales. We document that Eupteleaceae has the slowest rate of molecular changes in the observed angiosperms. The unusually low rate of molecular evolution of Eupteleaceae across all three independent inherited genomes and genes within each of the three genomes is in association with its conserved genome architecture, ancestral woody habit, and conserved niche requirements. Our findings reveal the evolution and adaptation of living fossil plants through large-scale environmental change and also provide new insights into early eudicot diversification.

Sensitivities of cloud radiative effects to large-scale meteorology and aerosols from global observations

Abstract. The radiative effects of clouds make a large contribution to the Earth's energy balance, and changes in clouds constitute the dominant source of uncertainty in the global warming response to carbon dioxide forcing. To characterize and constrain this uncertainty, cloud-controlling factor (CCF) analyses have been suggested that estimate sensitivities of clouds to large-scale environmental changes, typically in cloud-regime-specific multiple linear regression frameworks. Here, local sensitivities of cloud radiative effects to a large number of controlling factors are estimated in a regime-independent framework from 20 years (2001–2020) of near-global (60∘ N–60∘ S) satellite observations and reanalysis data using statistical learning. A regularized linear regression (ridge regression) is shown to skillfully predict anomalies of shortwave (R2=0.63) and longwave cloud radiative effects (CREs) (R2=0.72) in independent test data on the basis of 28 CCFs, including aerosol proxies. The sensitivity of CREs to selected CCFs is quantified and analyzed. CRE sensitivities to sea surface temperature and estimated inversion strength are particularly pronounced in low-cloud regions and generally in agreement with previous studies. The analysis of CRE sensitivities to three-dimensional wind field anomalies reflects the fact that CREs in tropical ascent regions are mainly driven by variability of large-scale vertical velocity in the upper troposphere. In the subtropics, CRE is sensitive to free-tropospheric zonal and meridional wind anomalies, which are likely to encapsulate information on synoptic variability that influences subtropical cloud systems by modifying wind shear and thus turbulence and dry-air entrainment in stratocumulus clouds, as well as variability related to midlatitude cyclones. Different proxies for aerosols are analyzed as CCFs, with satellite-derived aerosol proxies showing a larger CRE sensitivity than a proxy from an aerosol reanalysis, likely pointing to satellite aerosol retrieval biases close to clouds, leading to overestimated aerosol sensitivities. Sensitivities of shortwave CREs to all aerosol proxies indicate a pronounced cooling effect from aerosols in stratocumulus regions that is counteracted to a varying degree by a longwave warming effect. The analysis may guide the selection of CCFs in future sensitivity analyses aimed at constraining cloud feedback and climate forcings from aerosol–cloud interactions using data from both observations and global climate models.

Adaptation to climate change through dispersal and inherited timing in an avian migrant.

Many organisms fail to adjust their phenology sufficiently to climate change. Studies have concentrated on adaptive responses within localities, but little is known about how latitudinal dispersal enhances evolutionary potential. Rapid adaptation is expected if dispersers from lower latitudes have improved synchrony to northern conditions, thereby gain fitness and introduce genotypes on which selection acts. Here we provide experimental evidence that dispersal in an avian migrant enables rapid evolutionary adaptation. We translocated Dutch female pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) and eggs to Sweden, where breeding phenology is ~15 days later. Translocated females bred earlier, and their fitness was 2.5 times higher than local Swedish flycatchers. We show that between-population variation in timing traits is highly heritable, and hence immigration of southern genotypes promotes the necessary evolutionary response. We conclude that studies on adaptation to large-scale environmental change should not just focus on plasticity and evolution based on standing genetic variation but should also include phenotype-habitat matching through dispersal as a viable route to adjust.

Abundant and rare fungal taxa exhibit different patterns of phylogenetic niche conservatism and community assembly across a geographical and environmental gradient

Fungi play critical roles in the regulation of terrestrial ecosystem processes and functions. However, the biogeographic patterns, assembly mechanism and phylogenetic information of fungi across complex environmental gradients remains unexplored, especially the differences between abundant and rare fungi. Here, based on an extensive soil sampling (117 samples) covering almost all vegetation types in the Loess Plateau, we explored biogeography, community assembly, and phylogenetic niche conservatism of abundant and rare fungi. The results showed that the abundant fungal taxa exhibited less phylogenetic clustering than the rare fungi, but their environmental associations and phylogenetic signals were stronger. Stochastic processes dominated the assembly of abundant fungi. In contrast, the homogeneous selection of deterministic processes was the major assembly process of rare taxa. Soil organic carbon and nitrate nitrogen were the key factors driving the community assembly of abundant and rare fungi, respectively. Microbial network and niche analyses further indicated abundant fungi were more advantageous for maintaining microbial co-occurrence patterns and metabolic flexibility. We concluded that abundant fungi have broader environmental adaptation potential at spatially complex environmental scales and are less dispersed by environmental changes. These results provide insights for understanding the phylogenetic and community assembly mechanisms by which fungi adapt to large-scale environmental changes.

Continuous remote sensing ecological index (CRSEI): A novel approach for multitemporal monitoring of eco-environmental changes on large scale

With urbanization and anthropogenic pressures, the eco-environmental quality of East and Southeast Asian coastal regions has undergone drastic changes in the 21st century. To assess these environmental variations and realize regional sustainable development goals, a quantitative monitoring of the eco-environment is necessary, but challenging. The remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) was recently proposed and applied to quantitatively monitor the eco-environmental quality, but bias during multitemporal observations is a major limitation. Thus, a novel method, Continuous Remote Sensing Ecological Index (CRSEI), was developed in this study to enable constant and objective monitoring of large-scale and long-term environmental changes in the coastal regions of East and Southeast Asia. To reduce the multitemporal bias of pixels caused by imaging conditions and sensor status, a change detection algorithm requiring limited auxiliary data was developed. High-resolution images show that the CRSEI enables adequate multitemporal monitoring of eco-environmental changes with fewer false fluctuations on the local scale. The proposed CRSEI should deepen the current understanding of environmental changes and provide a solid scientific reference for environmental protection on multiple scales. The results of this research indicate that the eco-environmental quality of the east and southeast Asian coast remained generally stable during the studied period (2001–2019), with the mean CRSEI changed slightly from 5918 to 5856. However, on a regional level, each area revealed different conditions. First, the Korean Peninsula had relatively stable and well-maintained eco-environmental quality with a CRSEI of around 5500 during 2001–2019. Second, The North China coast had lower eco-environmental quality compared to other regions, but it showed the most improvement, with the CRSEI increasing from 2719 to 2807. Third, the eco-environmental quality of South China and Myanmar's coastal region remained relatively stable, with a CRSEI of around 5730 and 6720, respectively. Fourth, the continental coast of some Southeast Asian countries, particularly Vietnam and Cambodia, experienced a significant decline in eco-environmental quality, as indicated by a dramatic decrease in the CRSEI from 6751 to 6527. Notably, the areas with declining eco-environmental quality were concentrated in the western border regions of Cambodia, where unrestricted cultivation has led to the destruction of tropical rainforests.

Disaster management ontology- an ontological approach to disaster management automation

The geographical location of any region, as well as large-scale environmental changes caused by a variety of factors, invite a wide range of disasters. Floods, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones, landslides, tornadoes, and cloudbursts are all common natural disasters that destroy property and kill people. On average, 0.1% of the total deaths globally in the past decade have been due to natural disasters. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), a branch of the Ministry of Home Affairs, plays an important role in disaster management in India by taking responsibility for risk mitigation, response, and recovery from all natural and man-made disasters. This article presents an ontology-based disaster management framework based on the NDMA’s responsibility matrix. This ontological base framework is named as Disaster Management Ontology (DMO). It aids in task distribution among necessary authorities at various stages of a disaster, as well as a knowledge-driven decision support system for financial assistance to victims. In the proposed DMO, ontology has been used to integrate knowledge as well as a working platform for reasoners, and the Decision Support System (DSS) ruleset is written in Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL), which is based on the First Order Logic (FOL) concept. In addition, OntoGraph, a class view of taxonomy, is used to make taxonomy more interactive for users.

A 2200-year record of Andean Condor diet and nest site usage reflects natural and anthropogenic stressors.

Understanding how animals respond to large-scale environmental changes is difficult to achieve because monitoring data are rarely available for more than the past few decades, if at all. Here, we demonstrate how a variety of palaeoecological proxies (e.g. isotopes, geochemistry and DNA) from an Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus) guano deposit from Argentina can be used to explore breeding site fidelity and the impacts of environmental changes on avian behaviour. We found that condors used the nesting site since at least approximately 2200 years ago, with an approximately 1000-year nesting frequency slowdown from ca 1650 to 650 years before the present (yr BP). We provide evidence that the nesting slowdown coincided with a period of increased volcanic activity in the nearby Southern Volcanic Zone, which resulted in decreased availability of carrion and deterred scavenging birds. After returning to the nest site ca 650 yr BP, condor diet shifted from the carrion of native species and beached marine animals to the carrion of livestock (e.g. sheep and cattle) and exotic herbivores (e.g. red deer and European hare) introduced by European settlers. Currently, Andean Condors have elevated lead concentrations in their guano compared to the past, which is associated with human persecution linked to the shift in diet.

Identifying and interpreting regional signals in tree-ring based reconstructions of snow avalanche activity in the Goms valley (Swiss Alps)

One of the purposes of dendrogeomorphic studies is to provide long and continuous reconstructions of mass movements and to detect climate-induced trends in process activity. The development of regional chronologies—in which information from different sites are aggregated—is often needed to identify process–climate relations and to overcome local-scale specificities, sparse data available for individual sites and to extract a signal that is common to a larger region and possibly driven by past climate fluctuations or large-scale environmental changes. Yet, such chronologies are scarce and consensus neither exists on how to compile local data at the regional scale nor on the methods to be used to extract a common signal. In the case of snow avalanches, existing regional tree-ring studies typically included less than ten paths, and they discriminated years of high/low avalanche activity based on a regional index representing the proportion of disturbed trees in any given year. However, such an index does not account for potential non-stationarities in local tree-ring reconstructions such as e.g., time-varying sample size, decreasing dendrogeomorphic potential of trees after the occurrence of an extremely large, devastating avalanche or socio-environmental changes. Here we combine a dendrogeomorphic approach to reconstruct snow avalanche events in 11 paths located in the Goms valley (Swiss Alps) with an innovative statistical modelling approach. For each path, we compute reconstructions using a 4-step procedure to disentangle potential effects of snow avalanches from disturbance pulses in trees caused by climatic or other exogenous factors. We then process the regional dataset (spanning the period 1766–2014) within a Bayesian hierarchical spatio-temporal framework specifically designed to homogenise time series of avalanche events by i) removing trends related to the decreasing number of living trees back in time and ii) inferring robust trends in mean annual/regional avalanche activity in time and space. This contribution has the merit to introduce a methodological approach allowing rigorous extraction of common, average avalanche signals from snow avalanche paths characterized by heterogeneous process activity. Despite its stringency, we show that 11 avalanche paths may not suffice to yield a signal that is independent from the selection of couloirs. As a result, the approach also does not highlight a clear climatic control of snow avalanche activity but rather points to a complex, yet combined impact of afforestation and management strategies on reconstructed avalanches.

Growth portfolios buffer climate-linked environmental change in marine systems.

Large-scale, climate-induced synchrony in the productivity of fish populations is becoming more pronounced in the world's oceans. As synchrony increases, a population's "portfolio" of responses can be diminished, in turn reducing its resilience to strong perturbation. Here we argue that the costs and benefits of trait synchronization, such as the expression of growth rate, are context dependent. Contrary to prevailing views, synchrony among individuals could actually be beneficial for populations if growth synchrony increases during favorable conditions, and then declines under poor conditions when a broader portfolio of responses could be useful. Importantly, growth synchrony among individuals within populations has seldom been measured, despite well-documented evidence of synchrony across populations. Here, we used century-scale time series of annual otolith growth to test for changes in growth synchronization among individuals within multiple populations of a marine keystone species (Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua). On the basis of 74,662 annual growth increments recorded in 13,749 otoliths, we detected a rising conformity in long-term growth rates within five northeast Atlantic cod populations in response to both favorable growth conditions and a large-scale, multidecadal mode of climate variability similar to the East Atlantic Pattern. The within-population synchrony was distinct from the across-population synchrony commonly reported for large-scale environmental drivers. Climate-linked, among-individual growth synchrony was also identified in other Northeast Atlantic pelagic, deep-sea and bivalve species. We hypothesize that growth synchrony in good years and growth asynchrony in poorer years reflects adaptive trait optimization and bet hedging, respectively, that could confer an unexpected, but pervasive and stabilizing, impact on marine population productivity in response to large-scale environmental change.

Using US Natural Resource Damage Assessment to understand the environmental consequences of the war in Ukraine.

Military conflict has led to large-scale environmental changes throughout recorded human history. Pollution from war contaminates surface water and soil, releases large volumes of greenhouse gases into the air, and directly harms wildlife and biodiversity. Although much is understood about the human toll of war, numerous examples of postwar reconstruction suggest that underestimating the severity of wartime damages to ecosystems and natural resources results in prolonged or incomplete recovery of the environment. A data-driven scientific approach closely aligned with the evidentiary rules standard in western legal systems is needed to quantify the injury, destruction, or loss of natural resources and inform the estimation of the reparations necessary to restore the environment fully. The US Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process and the European Union environmental liability directive are well-suited for a systematic and science-based analysis of the ecological injuries incurred during armed conflicts. Both approaches include a preliminary damage assessment process, which could be initiated during wartime to document and predict the likely severity of the injuries and prioritize, in advance, rehabilitation activities after the cessation of hostilities. In this article, we refer to news reporting of Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as an example of how a preliminary damage assessment could be conducted remotely and later modified by in-country inspections and analysis to verify and refine the scale of injuries and to develop reparation proposals. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;19:366-375. © 2022 SETAC.

Risk management and vulnerability to sea level rise in Brazil, with emphasis to the legacy of the Metropole Project in Santos

Sea Level Rise (SLR) poses a range of threats to natural environments and built infrastructure in coastal zones around the world. Coastal cities in Brazil are vulnerable to the effects of SLR and to the intensity of storms that induce more storm surges and coastal inundation. Studies on vulnerability of coastal cities in Brazil have been developed by multidisciplinary and multinational collaboration between teams of natural and social scientists. Perhaps the best example is the METROPOLE Project (An Integrated Framework to Analyze Local Decision Making and Adaptive Capacity to Large-Scale Environmental Change), a partnership between Brazil, United States and United Kingdom developed to evaluate how local government, stakeholders and citizens may decide about adaptation options related to SLR and extreme events projections. In this paper we show how some results of the METROPOLE project have been considered in the definition of public polices of climate change adaptation and for practical actions to increase resilience of Santos by reducing beach erosion, to reduce climate risk.

Ecological vulnerability assessment of a China's representative mining city based on hyperspectral remote sensing

Mining cities are clusters of communities that specialized in mining and extractive industries.The extensive mining activities in these cities have stimulated widespread and substantial ecological stresses to the surrounding environment, that significantly jeopardize the health condition of vegetation and human. Given the recent recognition of remote sensing in monitoring large-scale environmental change, we incorporated Ziyuan #1-02D, a recently released hyperspectral remote sensing data, into the ecological vulnerability assessment framework, using Panzhihua city as a case study, which is recognized as one of the most representative mining cities in China. The multi-spectral imaging data was widely applied in previous research. However, with the wide bands, multi-spectral imaging data cannot depict detailed characteristics of spectral targeted. As a result, we introduce indexes from the hyperspectral imaging to ecological vulnerability assessment proposed in this study, which can depict and monitor the growth and restoration of vegetation more accurately. We used the optimum index factor method to select bands from the satellite-based Ziyuan #1-02D data for quantifying vegetation indexes and red edge. Besides, we obtained inventory data, land-use, soil type, and typography of Panzhihua city to reconstruct its ecological vulnerability index (EVI) for 2020 and 2021. Comparing to the multi-spectral data, the ecological vulnerability results from hyperspectral imaging performed better in precision and concentration in EVI values, reaching the conclusions more directly. Specifically, the mining area and the relevant hazard types and impact areas were delineated through intensive fieldwork. Results suggested that the east and west districts, and north of Renhe district suffer great ecological stress, in which we observed intensive coal and metal-related mining industry. The central region, which occupies vanadium titanomagnetite mines, also shows substantial ecological issues, while the other mining industries, such as granite ore did not significantly influence the local environment. Although the newly released satellite-based data only have two-year periods, we still observed improving ecological conditions, with the southeast and west regions showing much lower ecological vulnerability values. The spatial autocorrelation analysis suggested that the high-high clustering region of EVI is located in the east, west, and Renhe districts, primarily due to the mining industries of variations scales. We also found that the clustering of low ecological vulnerable regions, mostly surrounds the vanadium titanomagnetite excavation industry, thanks to the local restoration projects.

Using drones and citizen science counts to track colonial waterbird breeding, an indicator for ecosystem health on the Chobe River, Botswana

Many of the world’s freshwater ecosystems are degrading with increasing water resource developments, necessitating identification of useful indicators that track large scale environmental change. We investigated the effectiveness of waterbird breeding at the Kasane breeding colony as a biotic indicator of ecosystem health related to river flow and flooding on the Chobe River in Botswana. We counted nests and birds in the breeding colony in 2018 and 2019 using drone surveys, and estimated three breeding success indices: reproductive success, nesting success and fledgling success. We estimated 4529 birds of six species (African darters Anhinga rufa, African openbills Anastomus lamelligerus, African spoonbills Platalea alba, reed cormorants Microcarbo africanus, white-breasted cormorants Phalocrocorax lucidus and yellow-billed storks Mycteria ibis) were present with 2861 nests in early August 2018; there were no nests counted in 2019. Reproductive success differed significantly among species, ranging from 81% of eggs fledged for yellow-billed storks to 47% for African openbills and was significantly related to Chobe River level. To explore historical waterbird presence in the colony, we also investigated relationships between citizen science waterbird counts of the six breeding species on the river (1993–2018), to intra and inter-annual variation in river flows, flooding and local rainfall. Waterbirds were significantly less abundant at times of higher inundation throughout the year, and inter-annual maximum species abundances, likely indicative of breeding, were positively related to Chobe River maximum levels, occurring when the annual maximum Chobe River level was > 4.33 m. This matched our data: breeding in 2018, when the river level reached 5.09 m, and no breeding in 2019, when the river level was 3.23 m. Breeding of colonial waterbirds can be a useful indicator for ecosystem health as it requires sufficient and varied food sources at large scales, often in response to extensive inundation. It can be tracked using drone surveys, a non-invasive and safe way of estimating reproductive success. The determination of historical and current relationships between waterbird breeding and river level and flow can be used to forecast effects of climate change and water resource development on aquatic ecosystems.