Overlooked uneven progress across sustainable development goals at the global scale: Challenges and opportunities.

Differences in progress across sustainable development goals (SDGs) are widespread globally; meanwhile, the rising call for prioritizing specific SDGs may exacerbate such gaps. Nevertheless, how these progress differences would influence global sustainable development has been long neglected. Here, we present the first quantitative assessment of SDGs' progress differences globally by adopting the SDGs progress evenness index. Our results highlight that the uneven progress across SDGs has been a hindrance to sustainable development because (1) it is strongly associated with many public health risks (e.g., air pollution), social inequalities (e.g., gender inequality, modern slavery, wealth gap), and a reduction in life expectancy; (2) it is also associated with deforestation and habitat loss in terrestrial and marine ecosystems, increasing the challenges related to biodiversity conservation; (3) most countries with low average SDGs performance show lower progress evenness, which further hinders their fulfillment of SDGs; and (4) many countries with high average SDGs performance also showcase stagnation or even retrogression in progress evenness, which is partly ascribed to the antagonism between climate actions and other goals. These findings highlight that while setting SDGs priorities may be more realistic under the constraints of multiple global stressors, caution must be exercised to avoid new problems from intensifying uneven progress across goals. Moreover, our study reveals that the urgent needs regarding SDGs of different regions seem complementary, emphasizing that regional collaborations (e.g., demand-oriented carbon trading between SDGs poorly performed and well-performed countries) may promote sustainable development achievements at the global scale.

Navigating the landscape of global sustainable livelihood research: past insights and future trajectory.

Sustainable livelihoods (SL) have emerged as a crucial area of focus in global environmental change research, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This field is rapidly gaining prominence in sustainability science and has become one of the primary research paradigms. In our study, we conducted scientometrics analysis using the ISI Web of Science core collection database to examine research patterns and frontier areas in SL research. We selected 6441 papers and 265,759 references related to SL published from 1991 to 2020. To achieve this, we employed advanced quantitative analysis tools such as CiteSpace and VOSviewer to quantitatively analyze and visualize the evolution of literature in the SL research field. Our overarching objectives were to understand historical research characteristics, identify the knowledge base, and determine future research trends. The results revealed an exponential increase in SL research documentation since 1991, with the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Center (CGIAR) contributing the highest volume of research documents and citations. Key journals in this field included World Development, Global Environmental Change, Ecological Economics, and Ecology and Society. Notably, Singh RK and Shackleton CM emerged as prolific authors in SL research. Through our analysis, we identified six primary clusters of research areas: livelihoods, conservation, food security, management, climate change, and ecosystem services. Additionally, we found that tags such as rural household, agricultural intensification, cultural intensification, and livelihoods vulnerability remained relevant and represented active research hotspots. By analyzing keyword score relevance, we identified frontier areas in SL research, including mass tourism, solar home systems, artisanal and small-scale mining, forest quality, marine-protected areas, agricultural sustainability, sustainable rangeland management, and indigenous knowledge. These findings provide valuable insights to stakeholders regarding the historical, current, and future trends in SL research, offering strategic opportunities to enhance the sustainability of livelihoods for farmers and rural communities in alignment with the SDGs.

Micro- and nanoplastics in soil: Linking sources to damage on soil ecosystem services in life cycle assessment.

Soil ecosystems are crucial for providing vital ecosystem services (ES), and are increasingly pressured by the intensification and expansion of human activities, leading to potentially harmful consequences for their related ES provision. Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs), associated with releases from various human activities, have become prevalent in various soil ecosystems and pose a global threat. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a tool for evaluating environmental performance of product and technology life cycles, has yet to adequately include MNPs-related damage to soil ES, owing to factors like uncertainties in MNPs environmental fate and ecotoxicological effects, and characterizing related damage on soil species loss, functional diversity, and ES. This study aims to address this gap by providing as a first step an overview of the current understanding of MNPs in soil ecosystems and proposing a conceptual approach to link MNPs impacts to soil ES damage. We find that MNPs pervade soil ecosystems worldwide, introduced through various pathways, including wastewater discharge, urban runoff, atmospheric deposition, and degradation of larger plastic debris. MNPs can inflict a range of ecotoxicity effects on soil species, including physical harm, chemical toxicity, and pollutants bioaccumulation. Methods to translate these impacts into damage on ES are under development and typically focus on discrete, yet not fully integrated aspects along the impact-to-damage pathway. We propose a conceptual framework for linking different MNPs effects on soil organisms to damage on soil species loss, functional diversity loss and loss of ES, and elaborate on each link. Proposed underlying approaches include the Threshold Indicator Taxa Analysis (TITAN) for translating ecotoxicological effects associated with MNPs into quantitative measures of soil species diversity damage; trait-based approaches for linking soil species loss to functional diversity loss; and ecological networks and Bayesian Belief Networks for linking functional diversity loss to soil ES damage. With the proposed conceptual framework, our study constitutes a starting point for including the characterization of MNPs-related damage on soil ES in LCA.

Predicted no-effect concentration and risk assessment for 17-[beta]-estradiol in waters of China.

Contamination of the aquatic environment by EDCs has received considerable attention from scientists, government officials, and the public. E2, one of the EDCs with high estrogenic effect, has the potential to cause multiple endocrine-disrupting effects, even at small concentrations. In the present review, the toxicity of E2 to aquatic organisms was reviewed. Results of published studies show that, for aquatic species, reproductive effects were the most sensitive endpoint for E2 exposure.Although the risks posed by EDCs have caused much attention, the research on the WQC 'for EDCs is still at the initial stage. It has been suggested in several reports that the PNEC can be regarded as the most appropriate reference value for developing WQC for the EDCs. The SSD method was applied to derive PNECs that were based on reproductive effects endpoints. In the present review, 31 NOECs, based on reproductive effect endpoints for different species, were selected to construct the curve. ThePNEC value was determined to be 0.73 ng E2/L, which could protect the biodiversity of aquatic ecosystems. Moreover, 6 NOECs for multigeneration species were also analyzed in anticipation of sensitivity comparison between the Fa and the F1 generations.When multiple generations of aquatic species were exposed to concentrations no greater than 100 ng E2/L, nearly 71.4% of the F 1 generation individuals were more sensitive to the effects of E2 than those of the Fa generation. This result indicated that different generations of the same species may respond differently to EDCs exposure.Individuals of the F 1 generation were slightly more sensitive than those of the Fa generation,in general. Therefore, protecting the F1 generation of aquatic organisms is particularly important when WQC values for the EDCs are established.Considering the toxic effects of EDCs on reproduction, long-term toxic effects(viz., full-life cycle study and the most sensitive life stage) should be used in settingWQC. Unfortunately, the NOECs of E2 for multigeneration species did not meet the requirement of PNEC derivation for protecting the Fl generation. Therefore, further research results are needed on the Fl generation of aquatic species to provide more insight into what constitutes adequate protection for aquatics lives. In the present review, the PNEC values derived in the study were compared to thePNEC values developed by others, and the results showed that they were highly consistent. In addition, we also compared the PNEC value for E2 to the PNEC value for EE2, a similar estrogen, and the result was also highly consistent when their EEFs were considered. These comparisons affirmed that the method we used for deriving the PNEC value of E2 was reasonable and the PNEC values we derived were acceptable for protecting aquatic organisms. By comparing the PNEC values we calculated to actual E2 concentrations in the natural water environment, we found that E2 in surface waters may pose high risks in many countries, especially China, Japan, the USA, Great Britain, and Italy.