Current knowledge on the availability of mineral resources is explored in a recent study, which focuses on phosphorus as a key example. Static measures of availability, such as the consumption-to-production ratio, are useful as early warning signals, the researchers suggest, but more dynamic indicators that consider technological development and population change are needed to better inform policy.

Individuals can assess how their behaviour is affecting nitrogen pollution with a newly developed nitrogen footprint calculator, which was developed by a team from the University of Virginia (U.S.) and the Energy Research Centre (ECN, the Netherlands). For many people in wealthy countries, reducing protein consumption to the recommended levels and reducing the amount of red meat and energy they consume would significantly lower their nitrogen footprint.

The Deepwater Horizon accident raised concerns about the safety of deepwater drilling. From an analysis of risk assessments in the Norwegian Oil & Gas (O&G) Industry, a new study suggests that current safety approaches and indicators are limited and more extensive monitoring of drilling operations is needed to avoid events similar to Deepwater Horizon.

Little difference was found between organically grown tomatoes and tomatoes grown conventionally in greenhouses over a three year period, in terms of taste and nutritional value, according to a recent study in the Netherlands. Taste and nutrition were more dependent on the breed of tomato.

A new study has described how agricultural management of the British potato crop has changed over time to reduce several serious threats to food security. It is crucial that an EU plant health policy framework continues to build on these successes to protect against new diseases emerging from expanding global trade and a changing climate.

Although soil quality is best assessed using a wide range of indicators, a smaller set may be more practical and still provide the necessary information needed to choose between land management systems. This is the conclusion of a new study in Brazil that evaluated three different indexes of soil quality based on three sets of indicators.

The worldwide decline of pollinators could increase cases of vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies in humans, new research suggests. For instance, pollination is needed for the crops that produce half of all plant-derived vitamin A across much of south-east Asia. Furthermore, areas which depend most on pollination for micronutrient supply tend to be poorer and already at higher risk of deficiencies.

The noise generated by commercial shipping can impair the ability of the critically endangered European eel to avoid predators, new research has found. The results show that marine noise can have serious effects on these animals with potentially fatal consequences.

The factors enabling eco-innovation have been analysed across 19 European countries in a new study. Regulations and environmental subsidies were found to be more important factors in Eastern Europe than in wealthier Western European countries. External research and development (R&D) was also more relevant in Eastern Europe, demonstrating the need for specific technology transfers from other countries and competitors.

Spanish medical and public health researchers have found no clear evidence for increased heavy metal levels in adults living near a recently-built urban solid waste incinerator over two years of operation. Concentrations of lead, chromium and mercury in blood and urine samples taken around the plant were not significantly higher than for populations who lived further away.

A new study has investigated the possibility of a regional industrial symbiosis of metal industries across the Sweden-Finland border. The analysis suggests that it is technologically feasible, but that regulatory support may be inefficient, particularly with respect to changing the status of a waste product to a by-product.

Constructed wetlands can effectively remove veterinary drugs from wastewater, preventing contamination of the environment, research suggests. A recent study has demonstrated that laboratory-scale constructed wetlands were able to remove between 94 and 98% of two commonly used antibiotics from pig farm wastewater.

A team of Carnegie scientists has discovered three giant planets in a binary star system composed of stellar ''twins'' that are also effectively siblings of our Sun. One star hosts two planets and the other hosts the third. The system represents the smallest-separation binary in which both stars host planets that has ever been observed. The findings, which may help explain the influence that giant planets like Jupiter have over a solar system's architecture, have been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

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Phosphorus is essential for modern agriculture. Supplies are dwindling and markets are concentrated, presenting a serious threat to food security. Tackling this emerging global sustainability risk requires effective governance to ensure phosphorus is available and accessible to farmers worldwide. This study presents a series of phosphorus security indicators to support this goal.

Automation failures have been the cause of such widely reported disasters as the crash of Air France Flight 447 in 2009, with most of the focus placed on deficiencies in the automated system. Although automation does help in avoiding human error in completing tasks, people are still needed to monitor how well the automated system is operating.

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Resource productivity has become a popular indicator of environmental sustainability. However, new research has demonstrated that it is influenced by national income and its current use tends to support a simultaneous growth in economic productivity and resource consumption. In order to shape policy effectively, the study suggests that targets should directly emphasise resource consumption and emissions.

Sustainable development aims to improve quality of life without compromising the well-being of future generations. A new study highlights the challenges of setting environmental sustainability goals and cites the EU Climate and Energy policy package, with its ‘20-20-20’ targets, as a model example.

With ever-increasing global consumption, the impacts of resource depletion, land use change and pollution are being felt worldwide. A new study reveals how international trade is shifting the environmental burden from the consuming nation to other parts of the world, and calls for changes in the way national material use is accounted for.

Current knowledge on the availability of mineral resources is explored in a recent study, which focuses on phosphorus as a key example. Static measures of availability, such as the consumption-to-production ratio, are useful as early warning signals, the researchers suggest, but more dynamic indicators that consider technological development and population change are needed to better inform policy.

Progress towards achieving a sustainable urban environment may be measured by sustainability indicators (SIs), which can be chosen to represent values that are important to local communities. A recent study has assessed a set of SIs developed by both sustainability experts and local citizens and suggests that local communities can attach different values to SIs to reflect local values and understandings of sustainability.

Researchers have explored the influence of indicators in transport policy in two case studies at the EU and Member State levels. In both cases indicators were widely used, however, this did not always translate into direct influence on policies. Involvement of policymakers themselves in the development of the indicators and good links to achievable goals were thought to increase the likelihood of policy influence.

Urban sustainability indicators are tools that allow planners, managers and policymakers to gauge the socio-economic and environmental impact of existing urban designs, infrastructures, policies, waste disposal systems, pollution and citizens’ access to services. They allow cities to monitor the success of sustainability interventions. This In-depth Report aims to provide local government actors and stakeholders with a concise guide to the best indicator tools currently available.

Policymakers often have to make decisions under great complexity, uncertainty and time pressure. A new study presents a support tool for the first stage of policymaking: identifying and exploring alternatives to solve problems. The software tool, called QUICKScan, increases the speed of this process and combines the input of many stakeholders in participatory workshops. It has been applied 70 times in 20 different countries, for a wide range of environmental policy issues.

Public participation is an essential part of integrated water management. In a recent study, researchers following the development of a UK catchment management plan found greater cooperation between land managers and environmental regulatory bodies as a result of a participatory process.

Worldwide, programmes have been implemented to protect water quality from human pressures, often using ecological indicators as a method of evaluation. An eight-year study of a Portuguese estuary has found that indicators based on multiple measures of fish communities, such as the number and relative abundance of resident and migrant species, reflect human pressures on these transitional waters and could improve the implementation of water protection programmes.

The Kerala government on Monday decided to waive off rent for three months for all the IT/ITeS companies who have taken up to 10,000 square ft of space for operating in government-owned buildings.

New research suggests that many Ruffs are changing their migratory route when flying north to their breeding grounds in northern Europe and to Asia from Africa. This is because their food supply has been reduced by the effects of intensive agriculture in the Netherlands, where they commonly stop off, causing them to shift eastwards to stopping-off points in Eastern Europe instead.

Researchers have found that crops which rely heavily on pollinators have lower yields compared to less pollinator-dependent crops. They also have slower growth in yields and less stable yields from year to year. The results highlight the importance of managing biodiversity to support ecosystem services, such as pollination, on which much modern agriculture depends.

Falling levels of insect pollination are causing declining yields of important agricultural crops. However, new research from South Africa now indicates that planting small patches of native flowers in agricultural fields can be a profitable and sustainable method of increasing pollination and yield.

As bee populations decline, exposure of pollinators to pesticides is of increasing concern. Italian research has now demonstrated that an index of exposure which accounts for insect behaviour, as well as pesticide application, provides a valuable tool for assessing the realistic risk of pesticides to pollinators.

Since the 1990s, rates of biodiversity loss of wild plants and their insect pollinators have slowed down in north-west Europe, according to a recent study. It is likely that conservation activities, such as agri-environmental schemes, have contributed to this improving situation.

Agri-environmental schemes (AES) do successfully enhance the number and variety of insect pollinators, research suggests. They are particularly effective when implemented in arable landscapes which also contain some semi-natural habitat.

Pollination by wild insects and honey bees improves soybean yield by 18%, new research has indicated. This equates to an extra 331.6 kg of seeds per hectare, boosting the value of the global crop by €12.74 billion. Encouraging insect pollination could therefore reduce the destruction of natural ecosystems to make way for soybean cultivation, the researchers say.

Conserving West African coastal waters is also important for conserving European seabirds, suggests new research. The study shows that both adult and juvenile northern gannets and Scopoli’s shearwaters migrate to coastal waters of West Africa for winter. However, they are at risk of death from unsustainable and illegal fishing activities in this region.

Urban areas may support higher levels of bee diversity than expected, new research has shown. The UK-wide study compared three different habitat types - nature reserves, farmland, and urban areas - and found a higher number of different bee species in urban areas than farmland. However, the overall pollinator diversity, which included species of bees, flies, hoverflies and butterflies, did not differ significantly between all three landscape types. The researchers call for more attention to be paid to the role of green spaces in cities which can be important habitats for pollinators.

A new method for identifying forest sites to protect under the Natura 2000 network — as well as reviewing existing sites — is presented in a recent study. The modelling approach predicts the location of certain types of high nature value habitats using existing data on the distribution of key indicator species. The study demonstrates the method using the case of a German federal state, Lower Saxony.

Human activity is transforming natural systems and endangering the ecosystem services they provide, which has consequences for human health. This study quantified the human health impact of losses to pollination, providing the first global analysis of its kind. The researchers say pollinator declines could increase the global disease burden and recommend increased monitoring of pollinators in at-risk regions, including Eastern and Central Europe.

Large carnivores play important roles in ecosystems by regulating populations of herbivores and other species. Understanding how human activities affect the role of predators, particularly within human-modified systems such as agricultural landscapes, is therefore important. This study investigated how predator and prey populations were distributed in Transylvania, Romania, and assessed them in relation to human activities. The research highlights how relationships between large carnivores and people need to be considered as part of biodiversity conservation efforts, especially considering the successful recovery of several large carnivore populations within the EU.

To estimate the losses of wild pollinators across Great Britain, a study mapped records of 353 wild bee and hoverfly species, collected across the country from 1980 to 2013. It found that a third of species decreased, while a tenth increased. On average, the geographic range of bee and hoverfly species declined by a quarter, which equates to a net loss of 11 species from each 1km grid square (with uncommon species more harshly affected), highlighting a significant risk to biodiversity, pollinators, and their ecosystems.

The United Nation's Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) is an international initiative to standardise how chemicals are managed across the world. A recent study has proposed a suite of indicators which measure progress in implementing the GHS.

A new study has developed a set of indicators to evaluate how well companies voluntarily manage dangerous chemicals. These indicators can be used to check progress towards the World Summit on Sustainable Development goal of effectively managing chemicals.

Unprotected workers exposed to airborne nanoparticles face a potential health risk from carbon black and titanium dioxide nanoparticles, according to a recent study. Reducing airborne nanoparticle contamination to acceptable levels can be achieved by using a workplace filter ventilation system and personal respirators.

There are differences in the assessment and restriction of chemicals exempt from the EU’s regulatory instrument REACH. A new study has analysed the differences between several regulatory frameworks that govern these chemicals and recommended greater harmonisation in assessment criteria and regulatory follow-up.

As bee populations decline, exposure of pollinators to pesticides is of increasing concern. Italian research has now demonstrated that an index of exposure which accounts for insect behaviour, as well as pesticide application, provides a valuable tool for assessing the realistic risk of pesticides to pollinators.

Growing sugar beet varieties which are resistant to their pest, the cyst nematode, is the best way to achieve high sugar yields in northern Germany, recent research has concluded. The researchers say this method is better than growing trap crops or using pesticides to control the pests.

Two chemicals used as co-formulants in pesticides have been found to reduce the predatory behaviour of the wolf spider Pardosa agrestis, an insect predator found within agricultural landscapes. A third co-formulant was found not to affect the predatory behaviour of females and increased the prey behaviour of male spiders. This is the first time that pesticide additives have been shown to alter the predatory activity of a potential biological control agent of crop pests.

According to most EU legislation, regulatory assessment of chemicals should make use of all available and relevant studies. However, in practice, assessments tend to be predominantly based on research sponsored and provided by industry as part of their legal obligations to show safety of their products, rather than on independent peer-reviewed findings. To bridge this science–policy gap, a team of Swedish researchers, in combination with regulators at three Swedish governmental agencies, have published a list of recommendations aimed at increasing the regulatory usability and impact of academic research. This advice is aimed at researchers, for whom it clarifies relevant regulatory data requirements and quality criteria. However, it is also relevant to policymakers, in that it highlights the advantages and availability of relevant, reliable peer-reviewed research for use in the regulatory assessment of chemicals. The study’s recommendations contribute to the formulation of more science-based, sustainable policies.

Croatian researchers have developed new indicators that can be used to analyse photochemical pollution and smog caused by ozone. The indicators are based on simple mathematical formulae and could make it easier for those who monitor pollution levels to make meaningful comparisons between different sites.