ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE
New remote sensing approach reveals how forests have grown over more than 30 years and offers a powerful tool for climate science and policy
A collaborative international research effort has produced a new way to observe forest growth across large regions over extended time periods using satellite data. The work provides the first continuous record of annual forest canopy height, opening new avenues for tracking biomass accumulation, forest health, and the potential for global carbon storage.
Forests are vital to Earth’s carbon cycle and support diverse ecosystems, but understanding how they grow and change over decades has historically required costly and labor-intensive field measurements. Traditional forest maps provide snapshots rather than continuous growth patterns, limiting their usefulness for long-term analysis and policy planning.
New Satellite-Driven Forest Growth Data
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Copenhagen, and partner institutions used the Landsat satellite archive and advanced machine learning to reconstruct annual canopy height maps from 1986 through 2019. These maps were generated at 30-meter resolution and validated with airborne lidar measurements and national forest inventories to ensure accuracy.
This method uses a Random Forest machine learning model trained on existing global canopy height products to predict vertical forest growth patterns from satellite spectral data. The model showed consistent performance across different regions and decades.
The analysis revealed that forests in southern China have grown significantly over the past three decades. Average canopy height increased from approximately 6.4 meters in 1986 to more than 10.3 meters in 2019, a rise of over 60 percent. Plantation forests showed faster growth cycles, while secondary forests grew more steadily.
Key Drivers and Environmental Insights
Statistical analysis identified major factors influencing forest height changes. Forest age was the strongest determinant, followed by precipitation and temperature. Soil characteristics also influenced potential maximum height. This shows that both…
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Healthcare Staff Shortages Are Driving Extreme Emergency Room Wait Times Across the U.S.
Healthcare staff shortages are contributing to alarmingly long waiting times in emergency departments across the
Coast Guard Cutter Alert Returns Home After Seizing More Than $18 Million in Narcotics
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Alert has returned to its homeport following a multi-week deployment
The Environmental Advances Shaping the Future of Hot-Dip Galvanizing At Frontier Galvanizing
Frontier Galvanizing has spent over 75 years setting the standard for corrosion protection, with a commitment to environmental innovation that has shaped the future of hot-dip galvanizing. The company’s work goes far beyond fortifying steel for bridges, stadiums, or utility systems, employing processes that actively reduce energy consumption, minimize…
Microplastics in Plastic Bottles: Brian Kashman Highlights Why Bottled Water Isn’t the Solution
Bottled water has become an everyday item for millions, especially in the U.S., where perceptions of purity, safety, and convenience fuel its high demand. Marketing strategies have played a major role, often portraying bottled water as sourced from pristine natural environments, appealing to health-conscious consumers. However, the growing popularity…
Global Consensus Emerges to Protect Seamounts: IUCN Congress Passes Landmark Resolution
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has reached a defining moment in global ocean governance, as delegates at the 2025 World Conservation Congress (WCC) overwhelmingly approved a motion to phase out destructive fishing practices on seamounts by the end of 2026.
Motion 032, spearheaded by the…
Scientists Discover DNA Switch in Tropical Butterflies That Influences Wing Patterns Based on Seasonal Temperatures
Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have made a groundbreaking discovery about the wing patterns of tropical butterflies, revealing a simple DNA “switch” that allows them to adjust the size of their wing eyespots in response to seasonal temperature changes. This critical finding sheds light on the…
Study finds that warming may lead to more intense but less regular rainfall across regions
A new scientific study examining Earth’s climate during an era of extreme ancient warmth has revealed insights that may foreshadow how rainfall patterns could change as the modern world continues to warm. Researchers reconstructed precipitation patterns during the Paleogene Period, 66 to 48 million years ago, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were significantly higher than today, to better understand how rainfall responds under high-temperature conditions.
Scientists from the University of Utah and the Colorado School of Mines used geological “proxies” such as plant fossils, soil chemistry, and river deposits to infer how rainfall behaved during this period. Their findings challenge a long-held assumption that a warmer world simply makes wet regions wetter and dry regions drier. Instead, rainfall became much less predictable, with long intervals of dryness punctuated by episodes of intense precipitation.
The study suggests that under extreme warming, mid-latitude and continental interior regions tended toward drier conditions overall, even as polar and tropical regions experienced wetter climates. This irregular pattern—with infrequent but heavy rainfall separated by extended dry spells—indicates that the timing and consistency of rain events may change in ways that are not captured by simply measuring average annual rainfall amounts.
Dr. Alexander Everest situates the future of smart cities within a broader shift in how infrastructure, technology, and environmental responsibility are understood by engineers and policymakers. Urban systems now operate under intensifying pressure from population growth, climate volatility, and resource constraint. In this context, smart cities are not defined by novelty or automation alone. They are defined by the disciplined integration of digital systems into infrastructure that must perform reliably, equitably, and sustainably over decades.
The Evolution of the Smart City Concept
Early visions of smart cities focused heavily on connectivity and convenience. Sensors, dashboards, and automated controls promised efficiency gains across transportation, utilities, and public services. While these tools delivered measurable improvements, the concept has matured. Smart city development now centers on resilience, lifecycle performance, and environmental impact rather than isolated technological features.
Urban infrastructure functions as an interconnected system. Transportation affects energy demand. Water management influences public health. Land use decisions shape emissions and mobility patterns. Technology enables these relationships to be modeled, measured, and managed as a unified whole. Smart cities succeed when digital capability supports systemic coherence rather than fragmented optimization.
Infrastructure as a Platform for Sustainability
Sustainable outcomes in urban environments depend on how smart city infrastructure…
Danbury, Connecticut Awarded Nearly $3.5 Million in Landmark PFAS Settlement to Safeguard Public Water Supply
The City of Danbury is set to receive a nearly $3.5 million settlement as part of a nationwide legal agreement aimed at addressing contamination of public water supplies by PFAS, commonly referred to as “forever chemicals.” This significant settlement is part of multibillion-dollar deals reached with major corporations, including…
The Rise of Green Careers: How Every Industry Is Now Part of the Sustainability Economy
Sustainability used to live in silos — a department, a consultant, a checkbox. Now it’s cracking open the walls of every industry. From logistics to law firms, data science to design, environmental responsibility is no longer a bonus trait — it’s part of the job description. And with that…
University of Georgia Ecologists Identify Two New Black Bass Species: Bartram’s and Altamaha Bass
A team of ecologists from the University of Georgia has made a significant discovery, identifying two new species of black bass: Bartram’s bass and Altamaha bass. This breakthrough is detailed in a new paper, expanding the understanding of these riverine fish.
Though these species are newly described, they have been…
Innovative Living Sensor Detects Microplastics in Water Samples
Microplastics, tiny plastic particles often too small to see, have become a significant environmental concern found in our air, soil, and water. Measuring their presence is crucial for directing cleanup efforts, yet current detection methods are often slow, costly, or overly complex. In a groundbreaking study published in ACS…
Researchers release largest open-source earthquake dataset alongside novel prediction model that achieves state-of-the-art accuracy while respecting fundamental laws of physics
By Ryan Offman / Technology ReporterA team of researchers from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Technology Sydney has unveiled POSEIDON, a groundbreaking artificial intelligence system that successfully combines deep learning with established seismological principles to predict earthquakes and their cascading consequences with unprecedented accuracy.
The research, led by Boris Kriuk and Fedor Kriuk, introduces both a novel physics-informed neural network and the Poseidon dataset—the largest open-source global earthquake catalog to date, containing 2.8 million seismic events spanning three decades. The dataset is now publicly available to researchers worldwide.
Unlike conventional “black box” machine learning approaches that ignore the fundamental physics governing earthquake behavior, POSEIDON embeds core seismological laws directly into its architecture. The system incorporates the Gutenberg-Richter magnitude-frequency relationship and the Omori-Utsu aftershock decay law as learnable constraints, ensuring predictions align with established scientific understanding.
“We’ve demonstrated that respecting physics doesn’t compromise accuracy—it improves it,” said Boris Kriuk from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “POSEIDON achieves state-of-the-art performance across all prediction tasks while producing scientifically interpretable parameters that fall within established seismological ranges.”
The system simultaneously addresses three interconnected challenges that have traditionally been tackled separately: identifying aftershock sequences, assessing tsunami generation potential, and detecting foreshocks that may precede larger earthquakes. Such unified approach leverages the inherent relationships between these phenomena.
POSEIDON achieved exceptional results in extensive testing, including AUC score of 0.971 for tsunami detection despite these events representing only 1.14% of the dataset—a particularly challenging prediction task due to extreme class imbalance. The system outperformed gradient boosting, random forest, and conventional neural network baselines…
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Last week, Juneau faced the annual challenge of the Mendenhall Glacier’s lake outburst flood as glacial waters streamed towards the city. Thankfully, extensive preparations made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) helped mitigate the potential threats to local infrastructure and public safety.
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U.S. Department of Energy Report Challenges Conventional Climate Change Narratives
In a striking new report, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has evaluated existing literature and data on the impact of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions on climate change, positing that the economic damages from CO2-induced warming may be less severe than widely believed. The report, titled *A Critical…
Tiered framework could cut emissions by up to 30 percent while maintaining pollution control
A new large-scale study outlines a practical pathway to reduce carbon emissions from wastewater treatment systems without compromising water quality or regulatory performance. By analyzing operational data from more than 2,200 wastewater treatment plants, researchers have identified how infrastructure design, energy use, and operational efficiency directly influence emissions across the sector.
Wastewater treatment facilities play a critical role in protecting public health and the environment. Yet, they are also energy-intensive assets that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions through electricity consumption and chemical use. As cities face increasing pressure to meet climate targets, wastewater infrastructure has emerged as an essential but often overlooked opportunity for emissions reduction.
The research introduces a tiered assessment framework that classifies treatment plants by emissions intensity and operational performance. Facilities are grouped into priority control, general control, and maintenance categories, enabling regulators and operators to focus resources on improvements that yield the most significant environmental and economic impact.
Within the dataset, a group of benchmark facilities demonstrated that it is possible to achieve strong pollution removal while operating with significantly lower carbon intensity. These plants combine efficient process design with optimized energy use, serving as scalable models for system…
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Marine Biomass Becomes a Breakthrough Green Catalyst for Antibiotic Wastewater Cleanup
Global Leaders Fail to Enact Deep-Sea Mining Moratorium at ISA Assembly
Weeks after government leaders pledged to take significant action for ocean protection at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice in June 2025, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Council and Assembly concluded without a moratorium on deep-sea mining. This has resulted in a growing discrepancy between promised environmental stewardship and…
Declining Aerosol Levels Linked to Increase in Urban Heatwaves, Study Warns
Recent research from The University of Texas at Austin reveals alarming findings about the impact of declining aerosol levels on heatwave occurrences in populated regions. As heatwaves become more frequent worldwide, this study—published in Environmental Research Letters—highlights how reducing aerosols, which contribute to air pollution, may be exacerbating…
Global Call for Moratorium on Deep-Sea Mining to Protect Ocean Ecosystems and Future Generations
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) is calling for the international community to urgently establish a moratorium on destructive deep-sea mining to prevent irreversible harm to ocean ecosystems and protect the rights of current and future generations.
Over the next three weeks, States will convene in Kingston, Jamaica, for…