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Producing energy resources requires significant quantities of fresh water. As an energy sector changes or expands, the mix of technologies deployed to produce fuels and electricity determines the associated burden on regional water resources. Many reports have identified the water consumption of various energy production technologies. This paper synthesizes and expands upon this previous work by exploring the geographic distribution of water use by national energy portfolios. By defining and calculating an indicator to compare the water consumption of energy production for over 150 countries, we estimate that approximately 52 billion cubic meters of fresh water is consumed annually for global energy production. Further, in consolidating the data, it became clear that both the quality of the data and global reporting standards should be improved to track this important variable at the global scale. By introducing a consistent indicator to empirically assess coupled water-energy systems, it is hoped that this research will provide greater visibility into the magnitude of water use for energy production at the national and global scales.

Discussion of the environmental implications of worldwide energy demand is currently dominated by the effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on global climate. At the regional scale, however, water resource challenges associated with energy systems are a growing concern. This paper, based on an inventory of national energy portfolios, posits an indicator-based framework for characterizing regional energy portfolios' relative water intensity. These calculations extend upon a previous paper that established a method for calculating the national water consumption of energy production (WCEP) at the global level. Intensity indicators are based on normalizing the WCEP results with a set of additional indicators (including population, gross domestic product, total energy production, and regional water availability). The results show great variability in water consumption across nations, as well as across the various water intensity measures that were applied. Therefore, it is best to apply this full suite of indicators to each country to develop an integrated understanding of the intensity of water use for energy across countries.

Record climate extremes are reducing urban liveability, compounding inequality, and threatening infrastructure. Adaptation measures that integrate technological, nature-based, and social solutions can provide multiple co-benefits to address complex socioecological issues in cities while increasing resilience to potential impacts. However, there remain many challenges to developing and implementing integrated solutions. In this Viewpoint, we consider the value of integrating across the three solution sets, the challenges and potential enablers for integrating solution sets, and present examples of challenges and adopted solutions in three cities with different urban contexts and climates (Freiburg, Germany; Durban, South Africa; and Singapore). We conclude with a discussion of research directions and provide a road map to identify the actions that enable successful implementation of integrated climate solutions. We highlight the need for more systematic research that targets enabling environments for integration; achieving integrated solutions in different contexts to avoid maladaptation; simultaneously improving liveability, sustainability, and equality; and replicating via transfer and scale-up of local solutions. Cities in systematically disadvantaged countries (sometimes referred to as the Global South) are central to future urban development and must be prioritised. Helping decision makers and communities understand the potential opportunities associated with integrated solutions for climate change will encourage urgent and deliberate strides towards adapting cities to the dynamic climate reality., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests We declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the largest known remaining anthropogenic threat to the stratospheric ozone layer. However, it is currently only regulated under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol because of its simultaneous ability to warm the climate. The threat N2O poses to the stratospheric ozone layer, coupled with the uncertain future of the international climate regime, motivates our exploration of issues that could be relevant to the Parties to the ozone regime (the 1985 Vienna Convention and its 1987 Montreal Protocol) should they decide to take measures to manage N2O in the future. There are clear legal avenues to regulate N2O under the ozone regime as well as several ways to share authority with the existing and future international climate treaties. N2O mitigation strategies exist to address the most significant anthropogenic sources, including agriculture, where behavioral practices and new technologies could contribute significantly to reducing emissions. Existing policies managing N2O and other forms of reactive nitrogen could be harnessed and built on by the ozone regime to implement N2O controls. There are several challenges and potential cobenefits to N2O control which we discuss here: food security, equity, and implications of the nitrogen cascade. The possible inclusion of N2O in the ozone regime need not be viewed as a sign of failure of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to adequately deal with climate change. Rather, it could represent an additional valuable tool in sustainable development diplomacy.

Despite major efforts, the reduction of reactive nitrogen (Nr) using traditional metrics and policy tools for the Chesapeake Bay has slowed in recent years. In this article, we apply the concept of the Nitrogen Cascade to the chemically dynamic nature and multiple sources of Nr to examine the temporal and spatial movement of different forms of Nr through multiple ecosystems and media. We also demonstrate the benefit of using more than the traditional mass fluxes to set criteria for action. The use of multiple metrics provides additional information about where the most effective intervention point might be. Utilizing damage costs or mortality metrics demonstrates that even though the mass fluxes to the atmosphere are lower than direct releases to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, total damage costs to all ecosystems and health are higher because of the cascade of Nr and the associated damages, and because they exact a higher human health cost. Abatement costs for reducing Nr releases into the air are also lower. These findings have major implications for the use of multiple metrics and the additional benefits of expanding the scope of concern beyond the Bay itself and support improved coordination between the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts while restoring the Chesapeake Bay.

The chemical nitrogen cycle is becoming better characterized in terms of fluxes and reservoirs on a variety of scales. Galloway has demonstrated that reactive nitrogen can cascade through multiple ecosystems causing environmental damage at each stage before being denitrified to N2. We propose to construct a parallel economic nitrogen cascade (ENC) in which economic impacts of nitrogen fluxes can be estimated by the costs associated with each stage of the chemical cascade. Using economic data for the benefits of damage avoided and costs of mitigation in the Chesapeake Bay basin, we have constructed an economic nitrogen cascade for the region. Since a single tonne of nitrogen can cascade through the system, the costs also cascade. Therefore evaluating the benefits of mitigating a tonne of reactive nitrogen released needs to consider the damage avoided in all of the ecosystems through which that tonne would cascade. The analysis reveals that it is most cost effective to remove a tonne of nitrogen coming from combustion since it has the greatest impact on human health and creates cascading damage through the atmospheric, terrestrial, aquatic and coastal ecosystems. We will discuss the implications of this analysis for determining the most cost effective policy option for achieving environmental quality goals.

Nitrogen oxides are released during atmospheric combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, and during the production of certain chemicals and products. They can react with natural or man-made volatile organic compounds to produce smog, or else can be further oxidized to produce particulate haze, or acid rain that can eutrophy land and water. The reactive nitrogen that begins in the energy sector thus cascades through the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and soils before being eventually partially denitrifed to the global warming and stratospheric ozone-depleting gas nitrous oxide or molecular nitrogen. This paper will suggest how an economic analysis of the nitrogen cycle can identify the most cost-effective places to intervene. Nitrogen oxides released during fossil-fuel combustion in vehicles, power plants and heating boilers can either be controlled by add-on emission control technology, or can be eliminated by many of the same technical options that lead to carbon dioxide reduction. These integrated strategies also address sustainability, economic development and national security issues. Similarly in industrial production, it is more effective to focus on redesigning industrial processes rather than on nitrogen oxide pollution elimination from the current system. This paper will suggest which strategies might be utilized to address multiple benefits rather than focusing on single pollutants.