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This study highlights how Chinese economic development detrimentally impacted water quality in recent decades and how this has been improved by enormous investment in environmental remediation funded by the Chinese government. To our knowledge, this study is the first to describe the variability of surface water quality in inland waters in China, the affecting drivers behind the changes, and how the government-financed conservation actions have impacted water quality. Water quality was found to be poorest in the North and the Northeast China Plain where there is greater coverage of developed land (cities + cropland), a higher gross domestic product (GDP), and higher population density. There are significant positive relationships between the concentration of the annual mean chemical oxygen demand (COD) and the percentage of developed land use (cities + cropland), GDP, and population density in the individual watersheds (p < 0.001). During the past decade, following Chinese government-financed investments in environmental restoration and reforestation, the water quality of Chinese inland waters has improved markedly, which is particularly evident from the significant and exponentially decreasing GDP-normalized COD and ammonium (NH4+-N) concentrations. It is evident that the increasing GDP in China over the past decade did not occur at the continued expense of its inland water ecosystems. This offers hope for the future, also for other industrializing countries, that with appropriate environmental investments a high GDP can be reached and maintained, while simultaneously preserving inland aquatic ecosystems, particularly through management of sewage discharge.

Wood ash recycling to forests is beneficial because it regains nutrients and prevents acidification, but wood ash application is restricted due to its cadmium (Cd) content. We question if Cd in wood ash represents a problem, since decreases in Cd bioavailability due to ash-induced pH changes may counteract increased total Cd concentration. We studied effects of wood ash (0, 3, 9 and 30 t ha-1) and lime (pH increase equivalent to the wood ash treatments) on growth and Cd uptake in Deschampsia flexuosa. After four months, we measured plant biomass and Cd accumulation, and extracted Cd from the soil using three different methods; HNO3 (total), EDTA (chelator-based) and NH4NO3 (salt-based). Wood ash and lime strongly stimulated plant growth. Cd concentration in the plant tissue decreased with wood ash and lime addition, and correlated positively with the NH4NO3 extractable fraction of Cd in the soil. In contrast, HNO3 and EDTA extracted more Cd with increased wood ash application. We conclude that wood ash amendment increases soil pH, total Cd concentration, nutrient levels and stimulates plant growth. However, it does not increase Cd accumulation in D. flexuosa, as pH-driven decreases in Cd bioavailability leads to reduced plant Cd uptake. Finally, soil bioavailable Cd is best determined using NH4NO3-extraction.

AbstractNitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas and causes stratospheric ozone depletion. While the emissions of N2O from soil are widely recognized, recent research has shown that terrestrial plants may also emit N2O from their leaves under controlled laboratory conditions. However, it is unclear whether foliar N2O emissions are universal across varying plant taxa, what the global significance of foliar N2O emissions is, and how the foliage produces N2O in situ. Here we investigated the abilities of 25 common plant taxa, including trees, shrubs and herbs, to emit N2O under in situ conditions. Using 15N isotopic labeling, we demonstrated that the foliage‐emitted N2O was predominantly derived from nitrate. Moreover, by selectively injecting biocide in conjunction with the isolating and back‐inoculating of endophytes, we demonstrated that the foliar N2O emissions were driven by endophytic bacteria. The seasonal N2O emission rates ranged from 3.2 to 9.2 ng N2O–N g−1 dried foliage h−1. Extrapolating these emission rates to global foliar biomass and plant N uptake, we estimated global foliar N2O emission to be 1.21 and 1.01 Tg N2O–N year−1, respectively. These estimates account for 6%–7% of the current global annual N2O emission of 17 Tg N2O–N year−1, indicating that in situ foliar N2O emission is a universal process for terrestrial plants and contributes significantly to the global N2O inventory. This finding highlights the importance of measuring foliar N2O emissions in future studies to enable the accurate assigning of mechanisms and the development of effective mitigation.

In cold regions, the occurrence of frozen ground has a fundamental control over the character of the water cycle. To investigate the impact of changing ground temperature conditions on hydrological processes in the context of climate change, a distributed hydrological model with an explicit frozen ground module was applied to an alpine watershed in the upstream area of the Hei'he River in the Qilian Mountains, northwest China. After evaluating the base model, we considered scenarios of frost-free ground and climate change. Results showed that the base model with a frozen ground module successfully captured the water balance and thermal regimes in the basin. When the frozen ground module was turned off, the simulated groundwater recharge and base flow increased by a factor of two to three because surface runoff caused by exceeding infiltration capacities at high elevations, which occurred in the base model, was eliminated. Consequently, the river hydrograph became smoother and flatter, with summer flood peaks delayed and reduced in volume. The annual mean depth where subsurface runoff was generated, was about 2.4m compared to 1.1m in the base model. For a warming climate, a combination of increasing evapotranspiration and reducing permafrost area results in smoother and flatter hydrographs, and a reduction in total river discharge. Although our analysis using numerical models has its limitations, it still provides new quantitative understanding of the influences of frozen ground and climate change on hydrological processes in an alpine watershed.

Eutrophication of lakes leading to loss of submersed macrophytes and higher turbidity is a worldwide phenomenon, attributed to excessive loading of phosphorus (P). However, recently, the role of nitrogen (N) for macrophyte recession has received increasing attention. Due to the close relationship between N and P loading, disentanglement of the specific effects of these two nutrients is often difficult, and some controversy still exists as to the effects of N. We studied the effects of N on submersed macrophytes represented by Vallisneria natans (Lour.) Hara in pots positioned at three depths (0.4 m, 0.8 m, and 1.2 m to form a gradient of underwater light conditions) in 10 large ponds having moderate concentrations of P (TP 0.03 ± 0.04 mg L(-1)) and five targeted concentrations of total nitrogen (TN) (0.5, 2, 10, 20, and 100 mg L(-1)), there were two ponds for each treatment. To study the potential shading effects of other primary producers, we also measured the biomass of phytoplankton (ChlaPhyt) and periphyton (ChlaPeri) expressed as chlorophyll a. We found that leaf length, leaf mass, and root length of macrophytes declined with increasing concentrations of TN and ammonium, while shoot number and root mass did not. All the measured growth indices of macrophytes declined significantly with ChlaPhyt, while none were significantly related to ChlaPeri. Neither ChlaPhyt nor ChlaPeri were, however, significantly negatively related to the various N concentrations. Our results indicate that shading by phytoplankton unrelated to the variation in N loading and perhaps toxic stress exerted by high nitrogen were responsible for the decline in macrophyte growth.

As the largest renewable electricity source, hydropower represents an alternative to fossil fuels to achieve a low-carbon future. However, increasing evidence suggests that hydropower reservoirs are an important source of biogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), albeit with large uncertainties. Combining spatially resolved assessments of GHG fluxes and hydroelectric capacity databases, we assessed that global GHG emissions from reservoirs is 0.38 Pg CO2 eq.yr−1, accounting for 1.0% of global anthropogenic emissions. The median carbon intensity for hydropower is ∼63.0 kg CO2eq. MWh−1, which is lower than that for fossil fuels, but higher than that for other renewable energy sources. High carbon intensity is mostly linked to shallow (water storage depth <20 m) and eutrophic reservoirs. Furthermore, we found that the reservoir carbon intensity (CI) value would be markedly increased to 131.5 kg CO2eq. MWh−1 when considering the dams under construction and planning. A low-carbon future will benefit from optimal dam planning and management measures, i.e., applying sludge removal treatments, thereby reducing the proportion of shallow reservoirs and anthropogenic pollution.

Abstract The narrow active temperature ranges of ectothermic tetrapods can be used as proxies for reconstructing paleoclimates. Here we deduce the climatic preferences of major Permo-Triassic tetrapod groups based on their known geographic distributions, the critical thermal limits of living tetrapods, and paleoclimate information from other sources. The resulting preferred temperature sequence of amniotes places most Triassic archosauromorphs at the high end of the spectrum, with preferred temperatures over 32 °C in some cases, followed by captorhinids, pareiasaurs, procolophonids, cynognathian cynodonts, dicynodonts (excluding Lystrosaurus), Proterosuchus fergusi, and finally Lystrosaurus at the lowest preferred temperature. The poleward distribution of Permian Lystrosaurus marks the border of cool temperate climates, whereas Triassic Lystrosaurus delineates the border of the arid zone. Most temnospondyls indicate the availability of perennial water sources. Captorhinids and pareiasaurs preferred dry climates, whereas dicynodonts preferred wetter conditions. Based on current evidence, central Pangea transitioned from an arid zone to a tropical zone during the late Olenekian.

The Urban Intelligence (UI) paradigm conceived by CNR consists of an ecosystem of digital technologies joined within a Digital Twin (DT) of the city aimed at improving the city governance towards goals addressed also by the UN Agenda 2030, such as urban environment, sustainability and resilience, wellbeing and quality of life, local development, and social inclusion. In particular, UI provides a set of candidate policies in complex scenarios, and supports policy makers and stakeholders in designing shared, evidence-based, and integrated solutions. UI is being applied for the first time to two Italian cities, Matera and Catania, paving the way for a deeper scientific framing of the paradigm, as well as for the technological development and testing of the core UI ecosystem in real-life situations. The paper introduces the UI key-concepts and components, illustrates the ongoing experimentations in these pilot cities related to the development of two DTs on parts of the urban areas, and presents some initial results.