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Categories: Geoscience: Environmental Issues

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With climate change, irrigating more crops in the United States will be critical to sustaining future yields, as drought conditions are likely to increase due to warmer temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns. Yet less than 20% of croplands are equipped for irrigation. A new study finds that by the middle of the 21st century under a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, the benefits of expanded irrigation will outweigh the costs of installation and operation over an expanded portion of current U.S. croplands. The study maps where it makes the most sense to install irrigation for corn and soybeans and if there's enough water to do so.

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A researcher is creating the first model to plot on a map the coexistence of humans and bears in a national park in Italy. Designed as a tool to be used in practice, the model identifies measures and areas that are priorities for promoting human-bear coexistence. The model is being applied to the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise national parks, but can also be used for other regions and large carnivores.

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No amount of air pollution is good for the brain, but wildfires and the emissions resulting from agriculture and farming in particular may pose especially toxic threats to cognitive health, according to new research.

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Wastewater treatment plants are undoubtedly a great achievement. After all, they have made a significant contribution to improving the quality of natural waters. A study shows, however, that substances still manage to enter the water cycle that have an impact on the composition of the organisms living in it.

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A multidisciplinary team -- engineers, soil scientists, and biologists -- digs in with them for a deeper look at what happens to the soil underneath a decomposing body.

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Buckwheat's high-precision chromosomal-level genome sequence has been deciphered, a key step toward unraveling the evolution of the buckwheat genome and the origins of the cultivated crop. By altering specific genes using a method independent of common genome-editing techniques, the researchers successfully developed a self-fertile buckwheat variety as well as a new type of the crop with a sticky, mochi-like texture. This breeding method may contribute to a more diverse range of orphan crops than what is possible with existing genome editing technologies.

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Although many Americans dutifully deposit their plastic trash into the appropriate bins each week, many of those materials, including flexible films, multilayer materials and a lot of colored plastics, are not recyclable using conventional mechanical recycling methods. In the end, only about 9 percent of plastic in the United States is ever reused, often in low-value products. With a new technique, however, chemical engineers are turning low-value waste plastic into high-value products.

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Using a novel method to detect microbial activity in biological soil crusts, or biocrusts, after they are wetted, a research team in a new study uncovered clues that will lead to a better understanding of the role microbes play in forming a living skin over many semi-arid ecosystems around the world. The tiny organisms -- and the microbiomes they create -- are threatened by climate change.

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Maize roots secrete certain chemicals that affect the quality of soil. In some fields, this effect increases yields of wheat planted subsequent to maize in the same soil by more than 4%. While the findings from several field experiments show that these effects are highly variable, in the long term they may yet help to make the cultivation of grains more sustainable, without the need for additional fertilizers or pesticides.

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With methods of so-called geoengineering, the climate could theoretically be artificially influenced and cooled. Researchers have now investigated whether it would be possible to prevent the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet by artificially 'dimming the sun'. The results show that artificial influence does not work without decarbonization and entails high risks.

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Microscopic plastic particles have been found in the fats and lungs of two-thirds of the marine mammals in a graduate student's study of ocean microplastics. The presence of polymer particles and fibers in these animals suggests that microplastics can travel out of the digestive tract and lodge in the tissues.

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A new study finds that around 1.12 million years ago a massive cooling event in the North Atlantic and corresponding shifts in climate, vegetation and food resources disrupted early human occupation of Europe.

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New research confirms fracking causes slow, small earthquakes or tremors, whose origin was previously a mystery to scientists. The tremors are produced by the same processes that could create large, damaging earthquakes.

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New research links chemical changes in seawater to volcanic activity and changes.

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Dam constructions have flooded over 1.13 million acres of tribal land in the U.S., contributing to the historic and ongoing struggle against land dispossession for Indigenous peoples in the United States. New research has identified that a region of tribal land larger than the state of Rhode Island has been submerged by dams in the U.S. The findings raise concerns about the destruction of ecosystems, cultural heritage, and livelihoods.

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Between 1990 and 2019, the total annual number of premature CVD deaths and years of disability attributable to particulate matter air pollution rose by 31% worldwide.

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While some parts of the world suffer extreme heat and persistent drought, others are being flooded. Overall, continental water volumes vary so much over time that global sea levels fluctuate significantly too. By combining the hydrological model WaterGAP with GRACE satellite data, a team of geodesists have come up with a new set of data that shows how the total distribution of water over the Earth's land surfaces has changed over the past 20 years more accurately than ever before.

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New research indicates that mitigating both local land and sea-based human impacts, especially in terms of pollutants and over-fishing, provides coral reef ecosystems with the best opportunity to persist under climate change. Along some highly populated areas on the shorelines of Hawai'i, wastewater pollution and urban runoff combine with fishing pressures to put immense stress on coral reefs.

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If climate models predict that much of tropical Africa will become wetter with a warming climate, then why does it keep getting drier in the Horn of Africa?

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A telecommunications fiber optic cable deployed offshore of Oliktok Point, Alaska recorded ambient seismic noise that can be used to finely track the formation and retreat of sea ice in the area, researchers report.