Reconstructing changes in vegetation carbon sequestration and examining their mechanisms is essential for understanding terrestrial ecosystem dynamics and the global carbon cycle. We reconstructed Holocene net primary productivity (NPP) over the past 13,100 years based on fossil pollen records from two peat sequences in the Dongting Lake Basin, southern China, using a random forest (RF) model that showed robust performance (RMSE＜200, R²＞0.67). NPP dropped markedly during the Younger Dryas, rose rapidly in the early Holocene (ca. 10.0 –7.0 ka BP), and peaked during ∼7.0–4.0 ka BP under warmer, humider monsoonal conditions. Since ∼4.0 ka BP, NPP remained relatively high under continued warming, even as woody vegetation cover decreased, which may indicate an increasing influence of human-modulated land cover change on ecosystem productivity. This long-term NPP record documents a fundamental shift from climate-dominated controls during the early Holocene to increasingly anthropogenic modulation of terrestrial carbon sink in the late Holocene.
While various land use models have been developed to assess forest cover change in Europe over time, there has been very little dialogue between these projects and the growing body of historical and archaeological work on early modern European economic and environmental transformations. This article seeks to bridge this gap by assessing how the emergence of capitalism in Europe between 1500 and 1800 impacted the continent’s forests. Analysing the extensive historiographical and archaeological findings on this subject, we map how demand in the major European centres of capital accumulation (northern Italy, southern Germany, the Low Countries and England) accelerated deforestation in the watersheds of the North Sea, the Baltic and the Mediterranean. The colonisation of other continents also sparked further forest clearing in Europe, driven by shipbuilding for imperial fleets and the provision of goods for the expanding world-market. These findings show that land use change models need to integrate international flows of commodities, capital, and political power, to avoid treating states as isolated and ahistorical units. By doing so, we can see the impacts of colonialism and capitalism not only on other parts of the world, but on environments within Europe itself.
Land subsidence, the sinking of the Earth’s surface, is a multi-faceted hazard driven by both natural and anthropogenic factors, and poses significant risk to environments, ecosystems, and society. Despite decades of growing research output, substantial gaps persist between investigations on the diversity of causes, reflected in data and model insufficiency. These gaps hinder the understanding of the issue and impede the effectiveness of mitigation measures. Many studies have urged to include all identified subsidence processes acting in a single area in an integral framework, for which a complex analysis has not systematically been outlined before. Therefore, we focus here on bridging the gaps between various technical research disciplines involved. We stress the urgency for an integral approach that combines observations with subsurface information of all known subsidence processes in an area, and we appeal for utilizing them in physics-guided data integrations. Only then can all subsidence drivers be understood, and effective mitigation measures designed. We outline the elements for an integral approach in categorical tables and schematized figures, and we discuss the main opportunities and challenges in a stepwise workflow. Leveraging these opportunities naturally leads to more robust, scalable, and policy-relevant solutions and fosters a more sustainable future.
The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is a major zone where urbanization intersects with natural ecosystems, yet the extent to which urbanization alters forest integrity and local thermal conditions in WUIs remains unclear. Here, we integrate multi-source remote sensing data to construct a global forest integrity index capturing human pressure, fragmentation and landscape connectivity. We find that global forests in WUIs had a mean integrity level of just 34%, about half the global mean in 2020. Compared with nearby wildlands, 95% of WUI forests showed integrity loss, accompanied by canopy degradation, including reductions of 0.41 m2m−2 in leaf area index and 3.40 m in canopy height. Forest integrity loss is associated with strong daytime warming (0.85°C), mainly because reduced turbulent heat exchange (3.70 W m−2) dominates the changes in surface energy balance. Our findings underscore the importance of safeguarding forest integrity in WUIs to reduce thermal risks in expanding urban landscapes and to support the integrity-focused goals of Global Biodiversity Framework.
Bottom trawling is the largest source of anthropogenic seafloor disturbance globally, yet spatiotemporal variations are poorly constrained in most regions due to non-reporting or low-resolution fishing effort data. To overcome this gap in knowledge, we use a U-Net convolutional neural network to segment trawl marks across approximately 1,069 square kilometers of seafloor in the German sector of the Western Baltic Sea. The model was trained and applied to open-source bathymetric data collected between 2016 and 2025 with a resolution of 1 m. Trawling intensities vary substantially in space and over time, as evidenced by time-lapse bathymetric data for the Fehmarn Belt area. Here, repeated surveys of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in 2024 and 2025 confirm seafloor regeneration timescales of approximately one year. Within the MPA, trawl mark densities and AIS-derived fishing effort both increased from 2024 to 2025, indicating continued trawling activity despite a bottom trawling ban that entered into force in 2025. Circular untrawled zones in Mecklenburg Bay, often with diameters of more than 500 m, coincide with seafloor pockmarks indicating localized fluid seepage. We attribute these untrawled zones to fishermen avoiding the pockmark depressions which pose a risk to bottom-contact gear. Trawl marks are morphologically healed in areas with intense commercial ship traffic. This study demonstrates the potential of open-source bathymetric data to monitor anthropogenic seafloor disturbances.
This article examines how pre-Columbian communities cumulatively modified a tropical mountain landscape in the Rio Frio Basin, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, through long-term terrain engineering across a settlement sequence spanning c. CE 100-1600. Rather than treating terrain as a passive environmental backdrop, the analysis interprets topographic and hydrological gradients as enduring components of a humanly modified mountain landscape. Results show that Neguanje and Buritaca occupations shared essentially the same topographic niche, whereas Tairona settlement expanded toward gentler slope positions without a robust shift in mean elevation or moisture availability. Slope was the only terrain variable that consistently differentiated the Tairona period from earlier occupations, and this contrast operated within long-inhabited settlement zones rather than between site locations. Cultivable land expanded substantially through time, but population growth during the Tairona period outpaced that increase, tightening the relationship between demographic demand and accessible productive land. Rather than estimating an absolute agronomic ceiling, the analysis evaluates whether cultivable terrain expanded at the same pace as household-based demographic estimates. The Rio Frio case indicates that carrying capacity in tropical mountain landscapes operated as a historically mediated threshold, shaped through cumulative terrain modification and increasingly intensive use of inherited landscapes, rather than as a predetermined limit imposed by the physical environment.
Biomass burning has played a pivotal role in shaping atmospheric composition and regional climate dynamics across South Asia throughout the Holocene. Despite its significance, long-term fire history data from the Himalayan region remain scarce. This study presents a high-resolution reconstruction of biomass burning from similar to 10,000 years before present (BP) to the late Holocene, based on macroscopic charcoal analysis from lake sediment cores collected in the central Himalayas. Our results reveal distinct fire regimes that align with Holocene climatic transitions-highlighting episodic rather than sustained fire episodes during the mid-Holocene thermal maximum (similar to 8000-5000 cal yr BP) and episodic renewed fire activity associated with increased land-use and agro-pastoral expansion in the late Holocene (similar to 3000 cal yr BP to present). Charcoal influx peaks correspond to regional shifts in monsoon intensity and are consistent with archaeological evidence of human landscape transformation. These findings suggest strong coupling between fire dynamics, vegetation changes, and atmospheric feedbacks. The study underscores the Himalayas as a climatically influential region whose historical fire regimes have contributed to South Asia's evolving atmospheric system-offering new insights into long-range aerosol transport and regional climate forcing in the Anthropocene.
Understanding how shallow lake ecosystems record and respond to anthropogenic forcing requires robust sedimentary chronologies. Conventional radionuclide tracers like Cs-137 often provide diffuse signals in such dynamic settings, limiting the resolution of historical reconstructions. This study evaluates the robustness of plutonium (Pu) isotopes as a superior geochronometer and employ it to deconvolve the history of human impacts on Lake Wuchang, a representative system in the Yangtze River basin. A multi-radionuclide (Pb-210, Cs-137, and Pu239+240) intercomparison confirmed an exclusive global fallout origin of Pu and its sharper stratigraphic integrity than Cs-137. In the undisturbed central core (WCH-2), the Pu-based chronology revealed a distinct shift from high mass accumulation rates (MARs) during 1952-1964 CE (mean 0.77 g cm(-2) yr(-1)) to low, stable MARs after 1964 CE (mean 0.27 g cm(-2) yr(-1)), driven initially by flooding and concurrent land-use changes, and later by effective flow regulation. Heavy metal profiles delineated a three-phase pollution history since the 1950s: initial enrichment (1950s-early 1960s) linked to erosion from land-use change; expanded anthropogenic inputs (mid-1960s-late 1990s) from industrial and agricultural sources; and intensified, more differentiated pollution (recent 2000s-2010s). Zn showed pronounced and persistent enrichment, statistically distinct from other metals across all phases. Its spatiotemporal pattern and association with sedimentary organic matter converge with the documented history of local aquaculture, identifying this activity as the dominant source. This work confirms the robustness of Pu isotopes as chronometers for dynamic shallow lakes and demonstrates their utility in reconstructing anthropogenic impacts on sedimentation and contaminant deposition.
Mediterranean vegetation has been profoundly shaped by the interaction of climate variability and human activities, and understanding the timing, magnitude, and drivers of these transformations is essential for predicting ecosystem responses in an especially climate-sensitive region. In this study we present a high-resolution palynological record spanning the last similar to 3150 years from Laguna Grande de Archidona (LGA), a lake in southern Spain, to reconstruct vegetation history, fire activity, identify major Late Holocene climatic and lake-environment phases, and disentangle the relative roles of climate variability and human activity in controlling landscape evolution. Quantitative temperatures were estimated by a calibration derived from the Eurasian Modern Pollen Database v2 (EMPDv2) using the Weighted Averaging-Partial Least Squares (WA-PLS) calibrated regression method. Temperature primarily controlled elevational shifts of vegetation belts, while variations in effective moisture (precipitation minus evaporation) governed lake level fluctuations in the study area. Temperatures were highest coinciding with a period of higher humidity during the Iberian Roman Humid Period (IRHP). Subsequently, cooling is observed during the Early Middle Ages (EMA) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). The alternation of persistent North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) modes probably played an important role in controlling the humid-arid cycles observed at LGA. Anthropogenic impact in the area becomes particularly clear during the last millennium, when intensified olive cultivation progressively transformed the landscape.
Plastic pollution represents one of the most pervasive and persistent material signatures of the Anthropocene, yet its scientific characterization remains fragmented across material-, size-, and compartment-based classification schemes. Although operationally effective, these approaches fail to capture plastics as structured anthropogenic entities embedded within coupled human-Earth systems. Here, we introduce the Taxonomy-inspired Hierarchical Classification of Plastic Litter (THCPL), a hierarchical and integrative classificatory framework that organizes plastic litter from broad material context to specific marketed products, explicitly linking material composition, functional form, industrial origin, market identity, and environmental persistence. THCPL is structured across six taxonomic levels (Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species) using biological taxonomy strictly as a structural analogy, while maintaining clear ontological and epistemological boundaries between living systems and industrial artifacts. Grounded in Earth system science and Anthropocene research, the framework is designed to preserve scalability, traceability, and analytical coherence under real-world field conditions, including fragmentation and weathering. The operational feasibility and transferability of THCPL are demonstrated through its application to standardized coastal litter datasets from six countries (Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Morocco, Panama, and Spain), encompassing 912 plastic items across diverse coastal typologies and socioenvironmental contexts. Across all regions, THCPL enabled consistent hierarchical resolution, revealed high producer- and brand-level richness, and supported robust cross-regional comparison, even when fine-scale identification was constrained. Beyond classification, THCPL provides a foundational structure for quantitative analysis, enabling diversity, dominance, and functional assessments, forensic source attribution, and policyrelevant evaluation without normative assumptions. By aligning environmental observations with governance instruments such as Extended Producer Responsibility and by offering a structured framework for interpreting plastics as future technofossils, THCPL advances the integration of plastic pollution research into Earth-system monitoring, environmental governance, and Anthropocene stratigraphy.
In the Southwest United States, increased dust mass accumulation rates (DMAR) have been linked to land use changes driven by American westward expansion in the 19th century. Here we present a new, high-resolution dust accumulation record reconstructed from varved sediments in Columbine Lake in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado. By examining DMAR with a substantially more accurate age model and at higher temporal resolution, we find that dust increased dramatically in the 17th century, with robust change point analysis identifying 1667 CE (95% confidence interval: 1640-1740 CE) as the onset of sustained landscape disruption. This timing coincides with Spanish colonial settlement rather than American expansion in the 19th century, reaching peak DMAR values of 30 g/m2/yr (interquartile range: 15-81 g/m2/yr), the highest in the 3,400-year record. Combined with historical evidence of Spanish colonization, our findings suggest that the introduction of European livestock and farming practices in the Four Corners region triggered lasting changes in landscape stability. This change demonstrates that colonial extraction destroyed the pre-existing decoupling between dust deposition and drought, a relationship that defined the pre-colonial dust regime, providing a critical insight for understanding modern landscape vulnerability. Teaser: A new high-resolution varve dust accumulation record for the past 3400 years reveals that Spanish colonial activities in the 17th century, not 19th century American settlement, initiated sustained landscape disturbance and elevated dust levels in the Southwest.
Extreme heat events are increasing under climate change and have been linked to adverse mental-health outcomes. However, evidence connecting heat exposure with suicide is largely based on short-term studies within individual countries, limiting understanding of global patterns and social disparities. This study examined associations between heatwave temperature anomalies and suicide mortality across countries with different socioeconomic contexts. We conducted a country-level panel analysis using harmonized suicide mortality records from the World Health Organization for 99 countries from 2000 to 2019, combined with gridded climate reanalysis data. Population-weighted country-year indicators of heatwave apparent temperature anomalies were linked to national suicide rates. Heatwave temperature anomaly is defined as the deviation of heatwave-day apparent temperature from the long-term (1990-2019) local climatological mean, capturing the intensity of extreme heat relative to local climate conditions. Poisson fixed-effects models estimated associations while accounting for country characteristics and long-term trends. Stratified analyses assessed heterogeneity by gender, age group, and socioeconomic vulnerability, and exploratory analyses examined national patterns of mental disorder burden. Higher heatwave apparent temperature anomalies were associated with increased female suicide mortality in middle-income countries. An 1 degrees C increase in apparent temperature during heatwaves corresponded to a 2.3% rise in female suicide rates. Associations were strongest among women aged 45-64 years and in countries with higher levels of vulnerable employment, representing approximately 0.33 billion and 0.24 billion people globally. National patterns of bipolar disorder burden were consistent with a potential mentalhealth pathway linking heat exposure and suicide vulnerability. These findings suggest that extreme heat may influence population-level suicide mortality, particularly in socially vulnerable settings, providing global empirical evidence supporting the association between heat exposure and suicide risk, and highlighting the need for integrated heat-adaptation and suicide-prevention strategies.
Our research describes how digital terrain analysis and stochastic data exploration can be used to determine the location of objects of strategic importance, such as war-inherited manufacturing sites. Thus far, the use of spatial data in war geoarchaeology has focused mainly on identifying and cataloguing traces of conflicts highlighting polemoforms. The current research aims to find an efficient method for quantifying the terrain-driven predictability of strategic military siting using innovative technologies and tools. Using spatial data relating to the European theatre of World War II, the detailed survey of land altered into a war landscape was conducted at the former DAG Fabrik armaments factory in Poland. Applying the Maximum Entropy Model (MaxEnt), the spatial pattern of the exploitation of natural terrain features for camouflage was assessed, and preferred locations for strategic projects were identified. At the same time, the environmental, technological and strategic factors for siting objects of tactical importance were evaluated. Research based on 45 known building locations reported 6 retained predictors, where buildings are sited on short dune slopes with limited sky-view factor and short view distances. Successful spatial analyses have opened a discussion about the widespread implementation of modern technologies and tools for protecting cultural heritage, including war landscapes, for future generations.
This study investigated the stratigraphic expression of the Holocene-Anthropocene transition in a sediment core from Gentil Lagoon, within Barrier-Lagoon System IV, southern Brazil. Using a multiproxy approach integrating sedimentological, palynological and radioisotopic data, we examine Holocene dynamic over the last similar to 6 ka BP and assess the emergence of anthropogenic signals in the lagoonal record. The sedimentary succession reveals the coupling between allogenic drivers, particularly relative sea-level fluctuations, and autogenic system responses expressed by segmentation, progressive isolation, and infilling. From the second half of the 20th century onward, environmental transformations associated with the Great Acceleration intensified. The appearance of & sup1;& sup3;Cs-7 in the record, together with the expansion of exotic Pinus and shifts in organic matter content, defines the most plausible position for the local onset of the Anthropocene at 12 cm depth. These indicators reflect globally integrated processes, including atmospheric nuclear testing, species translocation and monoculture expansion, whose effects amplify local ecological dynamics such as eutrophication and system reorganization. Although radionuclides provide globally isochronous references, the stratigraphic expression of the Anthropocene in coastal lagoon systems may display some degree of diachroneity, modulated by regional sedimentary and ecological responses. The analyzed record reinforces the mid-20th century as a robust temporal marker for defining the Anthropocene while demonstrating the integration of human agency into the allogenic scale of depositional systems.
Magnetic proxies have been employed to reconstruct environmental evolution in lake catchments. However, the knowledge about the linkage between magnetic properties of lake sediments and catchment disturbances remains insufficient, which limits the use of magnetic proxies in paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Here, sediment cores from two shallow lakes (Changdang and Xiliang) in the Yangtze River Basin were subjected to detailed magnetic analyses to evaluate whether magnetic signatures of sediment archives can reliably reflect historical changes of human activity intensities and types in their catchments. The results demonstrated that magnetic minerals in sediments of the two lakes were dominated by detrital magnetite, coupled with a minor contribution of high-coercivity minerals. The conventional parameters indicative of magnetic material concentration (chi lf, chi ARM, and SIRM) and grain size (chi fd (%), SIRM/chi lf) indicated a notable intensification of agricultural activities and the presence of industrial activities in catchments of the two lakes since the 1960s. However, the relationship between these proxies and human activities was complex, with a given proxy exhibiting totally opposite trends forced by different types of human activities, thus limiting the use of these proxies in paleoenvironmental construction. Interestingly, the isothermal remanent magnetization ratio (S_300), a magnetic parameter indicating the relative proportion of high- to low-coercivity magnetic minerals, markedly increased in post-1960s sediments of both lakes, and its values were linearly correlated with catchment GDP and population data. Further, the analysis of previous references suggested this correlation was also present in other lakes. These results together revealed the reliability of using this proxy in indicating anthropogenic disturbance in lake catchments.
Sediment load in river systems varies over modern timescales in response to both climatic factors (e.g., changes in rainfall) and human interventions such as deforestation and dam construction. However, the relative contribution of these forcing factors remains inadequately quantified. In this study, we analysed the sediment storage in the dams and sediment load reduction in the Godavari River basin in India with over 900 dams and documented evidence of significant sediment decline over the past 2-3 decades. Using sedimentation rates from 48 major dams and sediment load data from 23 gauging stations, we find that between 1969 and 2013, sediment load decreased by 115 Mt/a, while reservoir storage increased by 101 Mt/a. This near-complementary relationship suggests that a previously well-connected fluvial system has been disrupted by dam construction. In sub-basins with minimal dam influence, sediment load changes are lesser or insignificant, reinforcing the spatial coherence of this connectivity. Importantly, this connectivity extends all the way to the delta, where only 20% of the incoming sediment is retained. Our findings suggest that dam-induced sediment trapping has significantly contributed to sediment starvation in the delta, placing parts of it at risk of sinking.
Explicit reconstruction of cropland cover in historical periods is crucial for understanding early humanenvironment interactions. However, global LUCC datasets such as HYDE and KK10 remain highly uncertain for pre-industrial periods, especially in East Asia where empirical land-use records are scarce. This study presents a high-resolution cropland reconstruction for 2 CE, corresponding to the late Western Han Dynasty, an early period of large-scale agricultural expansion in East Asia. Using population data, per capita cropland area (PCCA) derived from excavated bamboo slips, and historical settlement patterns, we estimated the cropland area across 103 commanderies (kingdoms) and the Protectorate of the Western Regions, and developed a 5 '& times; 5 ' cropland map based on a novel gridded cropland reconstruction model integrating land suitability and cultivation preference. The total cropland area of the Western Han Dynasty within the present-day territory of China was 3.76 & times; 105 km2, predominantly concentrated in northern China. Using 2 CE as the baseline, the cropland in the study area expanded by 6.04 & times; 105 km2 over the subsequent two millennia, of which approximately 67.37% occurred in southern areas. The substantial disparity in land-use intensity between northern and southern China during the Western Han Dynasty suggests that the transition toward the Anthropocene within East Asia was regionally asynchronous, with northern areas approaching an Anthropocene-like state considerably earlier than their southern counterparts. The resulting precisely mapped cropland dataset contributes to improving the credibility of global LUCC reconstructions and provides a valuable benchmark for simulations of long-term anthropogenic impacts.
Brazilian guidelines for metals in the land disposal of dredged sediments (DS) do not adequately reflect the characteristics of tropical soils. This study presents a critical evaluation of Brazilian legislation using an ecological risk assessment conducted in a typical urbanized tropical lagoon: the Jacarepagua Lagoon (JPAL). A metal-contaminated DS from JPAL was diluted with artificial soil (AS) and Spodosol at doses ranging from 0% to 30%. Acute bioassays with Eisenia andrei, Daphnia similis and Lactuca sativa, and reproduction tests with E. andrei and Chlorella vulgaris were conducted on soil:sediment mixtures. An ecological risk index was applied to integrate the ecotoxicological data. Metal concentrations, soil and DS characterization supported result interpretation. Although metal concentrations did not exceed Brazilian guidelines, the DS was toxic to the organisms. Spodosol treatments showed higher toxicity compared to AS, likely due to the sandier texture and lower organic matter content typical of Spodosols. The most sensitive endpoints were earthworm reproduction (Spodosol EC50=3.63%) and lettuce germination (Spodosol EC50=4.41%). The DS had no significant effect on microcrustaceans, and algal reproduction (Spodosol EC50=34.5%) exhibited some sensitivity. DS doses >= 5% may pose moderate to high ecological risk. Finally, the findings demonstrate that ecotoxicological evaluation of DS is highly recommended, which will make regulators in Brazil make better assessment for environmental protection.
