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Coral reefs are among the most diverse and valuable ecosystems on the planet, providing numerous benefits to human societies, including fisheries, coastal protection, and biodiversity conservation. In order to effectively manage and conserve coral reefs, it is essential to understand the value of the ecosystem services they provide. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework offers a comprehensive approach for accounting for ecosystem services, which can be useful for assessing the value of natural environments. While the validity of SEEA for many marine ecosystems is increasingly acknowledged, there remains a scarcity of studies that have investigated SEEA in the context of coral reef ecosystems. To bridge this gap, this study offers extensive examination and investigates the evolution of coral reef ecosystem service research under the SEEA framework in over nearly three decades, providing a rich dataset for understanding trends and gaps. The research findings reveal interdisciplinary methodological integration in coral reef ecosystem research, incorporating remote sensing, environmental science, ecology, environmental economics, ecological economics, computer science, and citizen science. Across different time periods, within the shared focus of coral reef health and sustainability, there has been a transition from concerns about the impacts of human activities to a concentration on climate change, supported by empirical evidence and case studies. These research results contribute to our better understanding of the value of coral reef ecosystems., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is one of the critical challenges to mitigate global climate change, which is having detrimental impacts on society and the environment. Fossil fuel combustion in transportation, power generation, and industrial processes is the dominant contributor to carbon emissions. Over the past decades, sustainable solutions and strategies have been investigated and developed to enable decarbonization. Catalysis plays an essential role to address this global challenge by increasing energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions, capturing carbon dioxide, and utilizing clean energy sources to displace fossil fuels. In this Review, the role of catalysis in reducing energy demand was discussed, enhancing process efficiency, displacing carbon‐intensive feedstocks and products, and therefore, reducing carbon emissions. Recent advances in catalyst development were summarized, focusing on applications to enhance industrial processes efficiency and enable utilization of clean energy sources. Emerging approaches in catalysis were reviewed, including the manufacture of iron and steel, direct air capture of CO2, production of ethylene, ammonia, and sustainable aviation fuels, plastic recycling, and the synthesis of biobased plastics. The Review was concluded with suggested research directions to achieve a carbon net‐zero world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the interrelationships between tourism and sustainability from a cross-disciplinary perspective. The current challenges and barriers in the tourism sustainability, such as high energy use, extensive water consumption and habitat destruction, are first reviewed. Then the key cross-disciplinary elements in sustainable tourism, including green energy, green transportation, green buildings, green infrastructure, green agriculture and smart technologies, are discussed. To overcome the challenges and barriers, a few implementation strategies on achieving sustainable tourism from the aspects of policy/regulation, institution, finance, technology and culture are proposed, along with the framework and details of a key performance indicator system. Finally, prospects of the potential for tourism to contribute to the transformative changes, e.g., a green economy system, are illustrated. This paper shine a light on issues of importance within sustainable tourism and encourage researchers from different disciplines in investigating the inter-relationships among community/culture, environment/ecology, and energy/water/food more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accumulation of heavy metals in paddy rice severely impacts the health of consumers and plants. In this study, a systematic approach to source-sink apportionment of copper in paddy fields was developed by considering all bioenvironmental interfaces. Experimental data from two experimental fields (namely Field A and Field B) in the first harvest period was collected. Then, mass-balance-based models with dynamic critical loads were established to evaluate the year of excess for copper. The results indicated that irrigation water contributed the highest portion (96.2–98.8%) of total copper inputs. Under the business-as-usual scenario, the soil copper concentration of Field A and Field B might exceed the Taiwanese national standard within 66 and 24 years, respectively. In addition, alternate wet-dry irrigation was found to be one of the total solutions to reducing copper accumulation in soils by 17–48%. It could also provide a significant reduction of water usage in paddy fields by ~25%, thereby increasing the resilience to extreme climate change events. Lastly, based on the field observations, three improvement strategies on sustaining soil quality towards better agricultural environment were proposed. The connection of copper accumulation in soils with dietary and ecological risks was also briefly illustrated. [Display omitted] • Source-sink apportionment and excess year for Cu in paddy fields were evaluated. • Total Cu inputs in two fields were about 143.0–364.4 mg/m2 per paddy rice harvest. • Irrigation water contributed around 96.2–98.8% of total Cu inputs in two fields. • Soil Cu in the business-as-usual Scenario may exceed the standard within 24 years. • Alternate wet-dry irrigation can reduce FIR by ~25% and extend T e by 17–48%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon dioxide (CO 2) is the major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the main driver of climate change. Currently, CO 2 utilization is increasingly attracting interest in processes like enhanced oil recovery and coal bed methane and it has the potential to be used in hydraulic fracturing processes, among others. In this review, the latest developments in CO 2 capture, utilization, conversion, and sequestration are examined through a multi-scale perspective. The diverse range of CO 2 utilization applications, including mineralization, biological utilization, food and beverages, energy storage media, and chemicals, is comprehensively presented. We also discuss the worldwide research and development of CO 2 utilization projects. Lastly, we examine the key challenges and issues that must be faced for pilot-scale and industrial applications in the future. This study demonstrates that CO 2 utilization can be a driver for the future development of carbon capture and utilization technologies. However, considering the amount of CO 2 produced globally, even if it can be reduced in the near-to mid-term future, carbon capture and storage will remain the primary strategy and, so, complementary strategies are desirable. Currently, the main CO 2 utilization industry is enhanced oil and gas recovery, but considering the carbon life cycle, these processes still add CO 2 to the atmosphere. In order to implement other CO 2 utilization technologies at a large scale, in addition to their current technical feasibility, their economic and societal viability is critical. Therefore, future efforts should be directed toward reduction of energy penalties and costs, and the introduction of policies and regulation encouraging carbon capture, utilization and storage, and increasing the public acceptance of the strategies in a complementary manner. Image 1 • The status of CO 2 utilization via a multi-scale perspective is presented. • Different technologies for CO 2 utilization are discussed and compared. • The worldwide research and development of CO 2 utilization projects is demonstrated. • The key challenges and issues for future applications of Carbon Capture and Utilization are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]