Surface waters in Europe and North America have been exposed to several decades of elevated nitrogen (N) deposition. Since the 1990s, N deposition has declined in many regions, but not to the same extent as sulphur deposition. Ecosystem N saturation has been a concern, but so far, no sign of region-wide increase in nitrate (NO3) leaching has been observed. Results from the most recent ICP Waters t...

Increases in anthropogenic emissions of sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) have resulted in increases in the associated atmospheric deposition of acidic compounds. In sensitive watersheds, this deposition has initiated a cascade of negative environmental effects on aquatic ecosystems, resulting in a degradation or loss of valuable ecosystem goods and services. Here, authors report the activities of an ex...

The purpose of ecosystem services accounting is to quantify the main transactions from ecosystems to society and economy and to report these transactions into accounting tables that are compatible with the structures and practices used in traditional economic accounting. The European Commission launched in 2015 the INCA (Integrated system for Natural Capital Accounting) project to produce concrete...

While climate change is widely considered as a major challenge for societies, another pressing global environmental problem, i.e. the loss of biodiversity, is often given less attention despite its strong negative consequences for ecosystems and thus for human life. In light of the strong interconnections between biodiversity loss and climate change, this paper compares the preferences and stated ...

The 20th century saw rates of biodiversity loss high enough to qualify as a sixth mass extinction. Climate change now further threatens species and ecosystem services. Pereira et al. forecasted changes in both biodiversity loss and ecosystem services to 2050 and compared them with changes from 1900 to 2015, combining results from 13 different models. Across three shared socioeconomic pathway scena...

Human activities have drastically increased nitrogen (N) deposition onto forests globally. This may have alleviated N limitation and thus stimulated productivity and carbon (C) sequestration in aboveground woody biomass (AGWB), a stable C pool with long turnover times. This ‘carbon bonus’ of human N use partly offsets the climate impact of human-induced N2O emissions, but its magnitude and spatial...

The forests of central Europe have undergone remarkable transitions in the past 40 years as air quality has improved dramatically. Retrospective analysis of Norway spruce (Picea abies) tree rings in the Czech Republic shows that air pollution (e.g. SO2 concentrations, high acidic deposition to the forest canopy) plays a dominant role in driving forest health. Extensive soil acidification occurred ...

Elevated ground-level ozone, a result of human activity, is known to reduce plant productivity, but its influence on tropical forests remains unclear. Here authors estimate how increased ozone exposure has affected tropical-forest productivity and the global carbon cycle. Authors experimentally measure the ozone susceptibility of various tropical tree species, and then incorporate these data into ...

Background tropospheric ozone (O3) is increasing particularly over China and India, and becomes a major threat to Asian forests. By using the coupled WRF-Chem model at high spatial resolution (8 km) over Asia in 2015, authors showed that both standards AOT40 (European) and W126 (United States) underestimated the O3 risk to deciduous forests and overestimated it to evergreen forests compared to the...

The Global Methane Assessment shows that human-caused methane emissions can be reduced by up to 45 per cent this decade. Such reductions would avoid nearly 0.3°C of global warming by 2045 and would be consistent with keeping the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.5˚C) within reach.The assessment, for the first time, integrates the climate and ...