Non-economic loss and damage induced by climate change in the Pacific Islands region has been reported as fears of cultural loss, deterioration of vital ecosystem services, and dislocation from ancestral lands, among others. This paper undertakes an in-depth systematic review of literature from the frontlines of the Pacific Islands to ascertain the complexities of non-economic loss and damage from

The current COVID-19 pandemics is having a major impact on our global health and economies. There is widespread recognition that ecosystem disruption, including land-use change and illegal wildlife trade, is linked to the increasing emergence of zoonotic diseases. Here, we emphasize that protected areas play a fundamental role in buffering against novel disease outbreaks by maintaining ecosystem integrity

Drylands occupy 43% of the African continent and play an important role in the global carbon cycle and in supporting local livelihoods. Understanding how dryland ecosystems respond to environmental changes, both structurally and functionally, is of great significance for sustainable dryland management. In this article, we review the current remote sensing-based knowledge on African dryland ecosystem

Given the increasing speed and intensity of ongoing climate change and human interventions, more systematic research is needed to realize the Sustainable Development Goals in drylands. The current research status of drylands globally was reviewed together with a conceptual framework that included four key themes: (1) dryland social-ecological system dynamics and driving forces, (2) dryland social-ecological

The abilities of global ecosystems to produce services are declining; while the demands for these services are rapidly increasing. However, there is limited understanding of mismatches between supply and demand of ecosystem services (ESs), which has serious implications for both human wellbeing and environmental sustainability, particularly in drylands. This paper provides three perspectives: (1) an

Dryland sustainability is a challenging global concern because of the comparatively low natural and socioeconomic carrying capacities. Land degradation neutrality is a challenging sustainability goal in drylands, for which ecological restoration has to transcend the scale of land degradation. Actions on ecological restoration are prevalent in global drylands driving changes of ecosystem services across

Across landscape and field scales, nitrogen (N) transformation rates are enhanced in hot spots (HS) and transient hot moments (HM), leading to losses of environmentally reactive N. Nitrous oxide (N2O) emission trends follow these spatial and temporal patterns. Consequently, landscape features can accelerate N2O emissions, and significant fractions of total annual emissions occur in these N2O emissions

The virtual issue will only include the main essay.

This article identifies diverse rationales to call for anticipatory governance of solar geoengineering, in light of a climate crisis. In focusing on governance rationales, we step back from proliferating debates in the literature on 'how, when, whom, and where' to govern, to address the important prior question of why govern solar geoengineering in the first place: to restrict or enable its further

Denitrification is a key but poorly quantified component of the N cycle. Because it is difficult to measure the gaseous (NOx, N2O, N2) and soluble (NO3) components of denitrification with sufficient intensity, models of varying scope and complexity have been developed and applied to estimate how vegetation cover, land management and environmental factors such as soil type and weather interact to control

Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from agricultural soils are a key source of greenhouse gas emissions in most countries. In order for governments to effectively reduce N2O emissions, a national inventory system is needed for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions that provides unbiased estimates with the highest precision feasible. Inventory frameworks could be advanced by incorporating experimental

Despite optimising fertiliser practice and nitrogen (N) use efficiency nitrous oxide N2O generation from ruminant-urine deposition prevails due to the concentration of N in the urine excreted. Development and application of mitigation strategies to reduce N2O emissions from grazed pasture systems requires knowledge of production and consumption pathways, and factors affecting these. Soil physical properties

Climate change will have dire consequences and collaborative efforts are required to quickly develop and assess mitigation solutions. Agriculture is the primary source of the powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) nitrous oxide (N2O) and an important source of GHG emissions. Due to sampling limitations, N2O measurements have traditionally been sparse; approximately 75% of sites we reviewed sampled for fewer

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is an important contributor to climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion and yet it receives little attention in either the global climate or ozone agreements. More concerted efforts to address N2O could be key in meeting the 2°C target and a suite of Sustainable Development Goals. The past several years has seen major advances in N2O science and technology: our ability to

As natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems are major sources of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) and of the atmospheric pollutant nitric oxide (NO), predicting the source strengths of these ecosystems is central to understanding and sustainably managing the N-oxides fluxes. Here we reviewed 82 high temporal resolution datasets on N2O and 57 on NO fluxes collected from multi-site and

Institutions are vital to the sustainability of social-ecological systems, balancing individual and group interests and coordinating responses to change. Ecological decline and social conflict in many places, however, indicate that our understanding and fostering of effective institutions for natural resource management is still lacking. We assess theoretical and methodological challenges facing positivist

In this paper, we consider how Indigenous peoples are contesting freshwater management regimes based on Western ontologies and epistemologies, and are seeking recognition for the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge, practices, and authority over freshwater. We focus on the potential of new governance arrangements emerging around the globe to contribute to broader societal deliberations about, and transformations

Addressing socio-ecological linkages is essential for diagnosing and proposing solutions to complex sustainability challenges, such as river-basin management, climate adaptation and broader sustainability problems. ‘Who?’ is integral to an inclusive approach, ‘What?’ dimensions of supportive ecosystems are included, and ‘How much?’ of the value of ecosystem services informs management decisions? In

Disparity between the knowledge produced and knowledge required to address complex environmental challenges, such as biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation, continues to grow. Systems thinking under the Open Standards for Conservation framework can help close this gap by facilitating interdisciplinary engagement, advancing conversations on how environmental systems work, and identifying actions

Resilient and robust natural resources management institutions have the ability to adapt (be resilient to) or withstand (be robust to) endogenous and exogenous shocks. While resilience and robustness are relatively easily defined, their empirical assessment and measurement are more challenging. With institutions understood as the individual rules, norms, and shared strategies used to organize repeated

This article presents research on contradictory representations of the Arctic and its inhabitants from the point of view of sustainable development. Indigenous peoples are repeatedly presented as connected to nature but outside politics, while business and state stakeholders portray the Arctic as uninhabited and utilizable for extractivism. These depictions diminish the agency of indigenous Sámi in

Although international institutions increasingly recognize the connection that indigenous peoples have to lands and the particular role that indigenous peoples have in maintaining and achieving sustainable development, notable challenges remain in the recognition of indigenous peoples’ own conceptualizations of sustainability. At a time when there is a growing pressure to intensify land use in Sápmi

A distinct formulation of Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ) is required in order to address the challenges of the ecological crisis as well the various forms of violence and injustices experienced specifically by Indigenous peoples. A distinct IEJ formulation must ground its foundations in Indigenous philosophies, ontologies, and epistemologies in order to reflect Indigenous conceptions of what

Inclusive innovation seeks to understand how technology can provide benefits for the marginalized groups. However, the role technology might play in inclusive innovation of urban agriculture is not well understood. We review and reflect on the term ‘inclusive innovation’ and its role in providing benefits of technology for the marginalized groups in urban agriculture. Through review of journal articles

In the last few decades, the literature on waste has soared and taken two main directions. Considering the assumption that waste is a natural category, which we need to ‘dispose of’, the scholarship on waste management and its sustainability offers mainly problem-solving propositions (e.g., the 3Rs proposal—re-cycling, re-using, and reducing—or ‘circular economy’). The social scientific waste studies

Indigenous music sustainability forms a cohesive concept due to shared sustainability threats globally among different Indigenous peoples historically and contemporaneously, shared aspects of music culture, and current ways of Indigenous pursuing music sustainability. During colonization, forced geographical relocations and cultural assimilations of Indigenous peoples threatened or extinguished their

Throughout the Amazon, notions of ownership and mastership shape the use of natural resources among many Indigenous communities. These ideas are reflected in the figure of game masters (i.e. spiritual beings who own the animals), which are widespread among Indigenous peoples across the Amazon Basin. In this paper, we explore the diverse biocultural manifestations of this socio-cosmology, focusing on

Climate-smart business models target multiple Sustainable Development Goals by fostering agricultural productivity, supporting farm and farmer livelihood resilience, and encouraging climate mitigation. While many business models (cl)aiming to create climate-smart value already exist both in agricultural development and business practice, little scholarly attention has so far been directed toward their

The imperatives of environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation and social justice (partially codified in the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs) call for ambitious societal transformations. As such, few aspects of actionable knowledge for sustainability are more crucial than those concerning the processes of transformation. This article offers a brief overview of different conceptualisations

Working with indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) is vital for inclusive assessments of nature and nature’s linkages with people. Indigenous peoples’ concepts about what constitutes sustainability, for example, differ markedly from dominant sustainability discourses. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) is promoting dialogue across different knowledge systems

Action on climate change is currently minimal, and woefully inadequate for steering away from its worst trajectories and impacts. Psychological science offers insights into the causes of climate change denial and reluctance to engage with solutions, and identifies avenues for enhancing climate acceptance and engagement. We review psychological processes that underlie denial, and survey promising directions

In this piece we (as one Indigenous anthropologist writing with a non-Indigenous anthropologist) explore research on how land is also connected to the revitalization of Indigenous minority languages and lifeways, suggesting that projects concerning either the sustainability of language and of land should not be considered separately. Under a framework of ‘sustainable relations,’ we explore how Indigenous

Group-based contracts are stimulated by food and agricultural development programs as powerful tools for risk-sharing. In successful groups social capital serves as a catalyst for risk prevention and knowledge sharing. It is however difficult to deal with catastrophic risk. In this paper we ask whether and how group-based contracts have been innovated to include catastrophic risk? The review shows

Given the relevance of producer cooperatives in policy debates around rural development, agricultural sustainability and inclusive business, there is surprisingly little information on whether these cooperatives are inclusive of smallholders. This paper reviews conceptual discussions and empirical evidence on the notion of a producer cooperative as an inclusive business. Three organisational characteristics

The global environmental change research community that engages with Indigenous knowledge holders commonly practice engagement in an extractive way: knowledge is treated as data that can be aggregated and understood in abstract and universal form. This assumes that knowledge and governance are separate and gives knowledge co-production the appearance of playing an informative and facilitative role

Private business is increasingly presented as a leading agent of development in policy, also in the pursuit of developmental goals beyond business, such as food security (SDG2 in particular). It is argued that the private sector is more effective and efficient in raising investment capital and targeting goals than entities of the public sector and civil society. This has spawned inclusive business

The concept of inclusive business has gained a central place in development policy and practice. that the underlying premise is that by making small scale farmers part of their business model, companies can increase their profitability and at the same time contribute to farmers’ livelihoods. Despite a wealth of positive anecdotal evidence, it remains unclear whether and how a company can do this. This

In 2015, the United Nations passed ‘Reforming Our World: An Agenda on Sustainable Development by 2030’ which established 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to supervise global economic, social and environmental sustainable development programs. Soon afterwards, China published ‘A Proposal for Different Countries to Realize Sustainable Development Goals by 2030’ which stipulated detailed strategies

This paper examines the potential for improved environmental performance of smallholder aquaculture production through ‘beyond-farm’ governance. Smallholder aquaculture farmers face a range of systemic environmental risks related to disease and water quality that extend beyond the boundary of their farms. Yet most governance arrangements aimed at mitigating risks, such as certification, finance and

Globalization of food value chains has increased the demand for greater transparency over where food is produced, how, by whom and with what effect on society and the environment. A range of new digital technologies are available to facilitate transparency, with the promise of leading the global food system to an era of ‘hyper-transparency’. Its impact on smallholder farmer inclusion, however, remains

The Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus has emerged as a multi-centric lens for assessing integrated resources management and sustainable development in the past decade. This paper initially reviews the current status of this approach, which has received some critique for being largely conceptual. The call to operationalise the nexus is heralded in many recent publications and a common theme is that ‘nexus

In this review, we explore the potential of green microfinance to contribute to transformations to sustainability. Green microfinance aims for environmental objectives in addition to microfinance’s traditional financial and social goals. We argue that the questions of whether and how these instruments contribute to social-ecological change on the ground have so far remained underexplored. Moreover

Urban agriculture (UA) forms a crucial part of the urban food chain in many cities in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). As urbanization continues, it becomes increasingly important to acknowledge the role of UA within the socioeconomic fabric of the city, and build inclusive business models to empower its practitioners. A crucial constraint for this is that various stakeholders in UA often take conflicting

The challenges of applied climate science and decision making require deeper engagement across communities. The RISA program has sustained regional research to advance climate adaptation for 20+ years. Managed to build and sustain relationships through a network, RISA aims to foster capacity necessary for addressing complex climate and social welfare challenges. Reflecting on the design and evolution

This review aims to unravel how partnering processes relate to processes of inclusion in the context of food provisioning. In food provisioning, inclusion has two key dimensions: the inclusion of (low-income) consumers to increase levels of food security, and the inclusion of smallholder producers to promote inclusive economic growth. This review discusses both dimensions and shows that the tandem

Achieving the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the context of a rapidly changing climate and demographics is one of the major challenges for South Asia. Interventions aimed at achieving the SDGs will be varied and are likely to contain basin-wide trade-offs that need to be understood. In this paper, we synthesize recent global hydrology-crop model developments, with a specific

Nitrogen (N) loss from agriculture threatens water quality and affects human health, especially the nitrate leaching. In China, nitrate concentrations in ground-water frequently exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) quality standard for drinking water of 50 mg L−1. In this paper we explore mitigation measures for reducing N loss to water from agriculture. Firstly, we synthesis the current state

A double intergenerational conundrum abounds in sustainability science as young generations of researchers have relatively little influence on current strategic decisions, but inherit their potential future consequences as professionals as well as human-beings. Collaborating with early career researchers (ECRs) in global sustainability initiatives can help address this conundrum. Guided by a model

Food production is a source of various pollutants in aquatic systems. For example, nutrients are lost from fertilized fields, and pathogens from livestock production. Water pollution may impact society and nature. Large-scale water pollution assessments, however, often focus on single pollutants and not on multiple pollutants simultaneously. This study draws lessons from air pollution control for large-scale

Environmental knowledge is a crucial input for public and private decision-making, yet often useful environmental knowledge appears to be unusable for decision-makers. To better understand how usable knowledge can be produced, we need to build on a better understanding of decision-making processes. We distinguish three different logics of decision-making and discuss their implications for knowledge

Adaptation to changing and new environmental conditions is of fundamental importance to sustainability and requires concerted efforts amongst science, policy, and practice to produce solution-oriented knowledge. Joint knowledge production or co-production of knowledge have become increasingly popular terms to describe the process of scientists, policy makers and actors from the civil society coming

Global population growth, an increasing demand for animal products and scarcity of conventional feed ingredients drive the search for alternative protein sources for animal feed. Extensive research indicates that insects provide good opportunities as a sustainable, high quality and low-cost component of animal feed. Here, we discuss how insect farming can promote inclusive business for smallholder

While food is mainly produced in rural areas, the main drivers of consumption are urban environments. The increasing demand for food in cities leads to an accumulation of phosphorus (P) in urban environments, which affects P flows at multiple scales. This study reviewed recent advances, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable management of P flows in decoupled rural–urban environments. We discussed

The integration of male and female smallholders in high-end value chains (e.g. those for tree crops like cocoa, oil palm, avocado, and mango), has been promoted throughout the global South as a strategy for poverty alleviation, economic growth, employment generation, gender equality, and improved wellbeing. More critical literature, however, questions the inclusiveness of farmers’ value chain engagement

Water scarcity has become a crucial environmental issue worldwide. It has increased substantially in the last decades in many parts of the world, and it is expected to further exacerbate in the future driven by socio-economic and climatic changes. Several solution options could be implemented to address this growing water scarcity, including supply and demand-side management options that span the water

The North China Plain (NCP) is a major food producing region in China. Overexploitation of groundwater for irrigation and overapplication of nitrogen (N) fertilizer have contributed to increased food production but have also resulted in water shortages and groundwater contamination. This paper reviews potential conflicts between strategies that ensure water security, food security, and water pollution

Inclusive agribusiness models aim at benefitting broad layers of the farming population in developing countries, not only farmers in well-structured value chains, but also (remote) subsistence smallholders producing for local markets. Under climate change, inclusive business models also need to be made climate-smart to increase the farmers’ resilience. In this paper we provide a brief review of the

Large scale research programmes and networks are an increasingly prominent feature of global change and sustainability research. They aim to bring together researchers with different topical, disciplinary and geographical backgrounds around common issues of concern. Significant human and financial resources are invested in global research programmes and networks. Nevertheless, we know little about

As global demand for food increases and impacts of climate-related extremes become more severe new governance mechanisms have become relevant. Individual and collective efforts by actors in water-for food governance could all contribute to sustainably managing the locally scarce water resources that are mobilized to meet the world’s demand for food. This review synthesises insights from agricultural