Key findings

• Urban canals reduce daytime temperatures by an average of around 0.8°C within their immediate surroundings, typically 20–50 metres away from the water
• Cooling is strongest during spring and early summer, reaching around 1.2–1.4°C
• During heatwaves, canals can lower nearby temperatures by 1.5–2.3°C
• The cooling effect substantially reduced the number of hours when people in the vicinity of canals would experience moderate and high heat stress
• Around 6.2 million people live within one kilometre of Britain's urban canal network, meaning millions could potentially benefit from these cooling effects

Using a new energy balance model, developed by researchers in the Geography, Planning and Engineering departments, the research simulated the thermal behaviour of more than 2,300 canal sections across Great Britain and Ireland over an entire year.

The researchers found that while canals produce a small warming effect overnight because water retains heat longer than surrounding surfaces, this effect is relatively minor compared with the cooling benefits during the day.

Improving health and wellbeing

The researchers also assessed how canals affect thermal comfort during hot weather.

Their modelling showed that incorporating the cooling effect of canals reduced the number of hours classified as posing moderate heat risk by around 58%, while hours of high heat risk fell by around 74%. In many locations, canals eliminated periods of extreme heat risk altogether, although the researchers caution that this is partly counter-balanced by rising humidity, which also influences people's comfort during hot weather.

The findings suggest canals could help reduce heat-related illness, improve wellbeing and encourage people to stay active and walk and cycle during hotter weather, in turn allowing access to nature and reducing carbon emissions through active transport.

"As climate change makes heatwaves more frequent and intense, cities need every available tool to help people stay safe and comfortable,” said lead author Dr Matt Tomkins. “Our research shows that canals, which were originally built to power the Industrial Revolution, could now play an important role in helping cities adapt to climate change.”

"The cooling effect is modest on an average day, but during heatwaves it becomes much more significant, reducing nearby temperatures by more than two degrees in some locations. Even relatively small reductions like these can make an important difference to people's health and wellbeing during periods of extreme heat."

Supporting climate-resilient cities

The researchers say that alongside urban heat regulating services, which have been estimated to provide economic benefits of £14.41 million per year by reducing losses in labour productivity caused by hot days, the studied canals could play a role in reducing carbon emissions, both through enabling active transport during hotter periods and potentially reducing the demand for energy-intensive air-conditioning.

“Accessible blue and green spaces result in wider health and wellbeing benefits for society” says co-author Dr. Joanne Tippett. “The cooling that canals offer could help more people to stay active and access these spaces even during hot days. This highlights the importance of not only protecting our urban canals, but also thinking about how to increase signposting and access, connectivity with other green infrastructure, and wider awareness of these vital networks of urban cooling”.

They emphasise that canals are not a complete solution to rising urban temperatures, but argue they should form part of a wider package of climate adaptation measures alongside parks, trees, sustainable drainage and other forms of green and blue infrastructure.

The study also provides a new modelling approach that could be applied more widely to assess how similar waterways contribute to cooling in other cities around the world, and to complement insights gained from field-based measurements, modelling, and satellite-based observations.

Publication details

The study was published in Nature Communications.

Funding, data, and support for this project was provided by the Canal and River Trust, with the research generously supported thanks to funds raised by Postcode Lottery players.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75731-0

The study was carried out in collaboration with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and was made possible through the assistance of Emudu Trekkers and members of the Idu Mishmi community, the traditional custodians of the Dibang Valley. The research was funded by a Walters Kundert Fellowship from the Royal Geographical Society (UK).

This study provides the first dated glacial chronology for the Dri Valley in the remote eastern Himalayas, filling a major gap in understanding glacier evolution in one of the least-studied sectors of the Himalayas and providing an important benchmark for future studies of regional climate change.

Key findings

• The Dri Valley glacier reached almost 100 km in length, making it one of the largest glaciers yet documented in High Mountain Asia.
• It extended from altitudes of around 5,300 metres to as low as 1,300–1,500 metres above sea level, giving it one of the lowest known glacier termini in High Mountain Asia.
• The glacier was 80 km in length around 19,600 years ago.
• By around 12,000 years ago, the glacier had retreated to altitudes above 3,250 m and was less than 20 km long.
• Today, its largest surviving remnant is less than 5 km long.

Reconstructing the past Himalayan landscape

Researchers examined the landscape of the Dri Valley for geomorphic evidence left behind by the ancient glacier, including U-shaped valleys, moraines and distinctive bedrock features created by the movement of ice.

The research combines detailed field observations with satellite mapping and digital elevation models to build a picture of the former ice extent and identify locations where exposed rock could provide evidence of past glacier movements.

These features provide a record of how the glacier shaped the landscape as it advanced and retreated, but establishing when those changes occurred required highly sensitive dating techniques.

“The Dri Valley preserves an exceptional record of past glaciation, but until now we had no reliable way of placing these landforms into a timeline,” said Dr Shashank Nitundil of The University of Manchester, who led the research.

Using rocks as natural clocks

The researchers collected 63 samples from boulders and exposed bedrock surfaces across the Dri Valley. This is the first application of cosmogenic nuclide dating on the southern slopes of the Himalayas east of Mount Everest.

The samples were analysed for cosmogenic radionuclides – rare isotopes produced in rocks exposed at the Earth's surface by cosmic rays.

The team focused on beryllium-10 (¹⁰Be), which accumulates in quartz-bearing rocks while they are exposed to cosmic radiation. When a glacier covers a rock surface, production of the isotope is effectively halted and eventually reset due to glacial erosion. When the ice retreats and the rock is exposed again, ¹⁰Be begins to accumulate. Measuring its concentration allows researchers to determine when the ice disappeared.

The measurements were carried out using accelerator mass spectrometry at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), allowing the team to detect the extremely small quantities of ¹⁰Be needed to establish the timing of past glacier change.

“The huge size of the former glacier in the Dri Valley hints at similar extensive ice cover in neighbouring valleys and the presence of one of the largest contiguous ice masses in the Himalayas. Until now little has been known about the extent, timing and palaeoclimatic significance of the former glaciers in this region and the exciting results of this research have been made possible because of a major international collaboration between the University of Manchester, ANSTO and local support from members of the Idu Mishmi community” said Professor Philip Hughes of The University of Manchester, who co-supervised the research and has had long-term collaborations with Dr David Fink at ANSTO.

Understanding monsoon-driven glacier change

The Dri Valley sits within a region dominated by the Indian Summer Monsoon, which delivers some of the highest precipitation across the Himalayas, making it an important natural laboratory for understanding how monsoon-fed glaciers respond to climate change.

The study shows that abundant monsoon precipitation alone was not enough to sustain this giant glacier. Instead, its growth and retreat were shaped by the interplay between temperature, precipitation and topography.

The findings suggest that once temperatures rise above a critical threshold, increasing precipitation falls as rain rather than snow. This reduces glacier accumulation and, at the same time, can accelerate ice loss through melting meaning heavy precipitation does not necessarily protect these glaciers from warming.

The study adds to growing evidence that the response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change is not uniform. Glaciers in different parts of the mountain range are influenced by contrasting combinations of snowfall, temperature, elevation and seasonal climate patterns.

As well as being climatically significant, the Dri Valley and surrounding region form part of a recognised Himalayan biodiversity hotspot, adding further importance to understanding how its glaciers and the water resources they feed are likely to change.

Understanding how Himalayan glaciers responded to past climate change provides an important long-term benchmark for improving projections of how these glaciers may respond to continued global warming in the future.

Publication details

The paper was published in journal Quaternary Science Reviews. The international research team included Dr Shashank Nitundil, Dr Christopher Darvill, Prof Abi Stone, Dr David Fink, Prof Philip Hughes, Dr Matt Tomkins and Dr Krista Simon.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.109836

Tackling the public’s energy concerns

Amidst growing climate change concerns and exposure to fossil fuel price shocks, local energy schemes are beneficial for engaging the public directly in an energy transition, encouraging community cohesion, bringing direct financial benefits to participants, and providing energy for more remote locations.

However, PPERC’s response, Putting Power in its Place, states that the government’s plan also provides a major opportunity to address issues of energy poverty.

“What we argue for is genuinely community owned, democratic energy projects which provide both direct returns to those facing energy poverty and debt but also opportunities to develop skills and greater community cohesion,” said Dr Gareth Fearn, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and editor of the paper.

Key recommendations

Their paper outlines five practical recommendations to ensure the LPP delivers on its full potential.

• Bring power to the people by proactively identifying communities most in need, building mechanisms for democratic ownership, creating bespoke regulation, and ringfencing funding for engagement and participatory energy planning.
• Address energy poverty by embedding it as a key funding criterion, targeting local schemes in areas with high energy debt, creating a single UK registry of community energy organisations, and engaging with existing community groups.
• Develop skills through community power and support job creation by creating a more inclusive, better-targeted skills strategy and integrating small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary, community and social enterprises.
• Connect the LPP to other plans, such as aligning the Warm Homes Agency with Great British Energy (GBE) Local, and guiding local authority planners on how to include community energy in local policy.
• Invest in the ‘one stop shop’ by ensuring energy and retrofit advice services have secure, long-term funding for delivery partners, creating a nationally visible advice helpline, and developing a comprehensive business- and community-focused energy advice service.

Creating local job opportunities

PPERC’s research suggests that proactively working with communities leads to better energy planning. Whilst community projects can give more people a stake in the future of energy, their paper suggests that the full benefits will only be realised if the LPP ensures clear, inclusive pathways into jobs and skills for locals. This includes addressing any structural barriers to pursuing training faced by marginalised groups.

“We see the LPP, and the expanding role of Great British Energy at a local level, as a means of bringing a range of different people into the energy transition in both materially and socially beneficial ways,” said Dr Fearn.

Looking to the future

Since the Local Power Plan was announced in February, the political context and global energy pressures have continued to shift, further emphasising the need to strengthen energy security and ensure the plan delivers lasting benefits for the communities most affected.

By establishing protected mechanisms for public and democratic ownership over the projects, PPERC argues, the LPP will be able to maximise the potential of community energy to deliver much-needed impact.

Publication details

The full response and recommendations, Putting Power in its Place: A PPERC response to the Local Power Plan, can be read here.

James is Professor of Human Geography in the School of Environment, Education and Development. His research explores how cities can become smarter and more sustainable through urban experimentation, helping governments and communities learn, innovate and respond to complex societal challenges.

In addition to being Associate Dean for Research, he has held a number of leadership roles across the University, including Head of the Department of Geography, Director of the Manchester Urban Institute and Academic Lead for Sustainability.

Professor Fiona Devine, Vice-President and Dean, said:

James said:

James will take up the Vice-Dean for Research role from Professor Maggie Gale, who will become the new Head of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures in the Faculty of Humanities on 1 August.

"The study highlights a wider challenge facing governments around the world – whether in the EU, the UK or elsewhere, efforts to tackle imported deforestation need to work with producer countries rather than simply impose new requirements on them,” said co-author Professor Khalid Nadvi, Professor of International Development at The University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute and Head of the School of Environment, Education and Development.

"Effective environmental governance depends on cooperation, capacity-building and shared responsibility across global supply chains."

Publication details

The paper was published in journal Global Policy.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.70181

• Elite football increasingly relies on investment from fossil fuel-rich states and companies, including sponsorships and ownership models linked to Gulf nations and energy firms.
• FIFA’s partnership with Saudi oil giant Aramco is singled out by the authors, who claim football has become central to a wider strategy of sportswashing by fossil fuel interests.
• The expanded 48-team format for the 2026 Men’s World Cup will significantly increase emissions due to the greater number of matches and the vast travel distances across North America.
• The tournament will feature 104 matches across 16 host cities spanning the entire continent. The last Men’s World Cup in 2022, Qatar, saw 64 matches played across the 32-team tournament.
• FIFA’s environmental policies are scrutinised, with the research team accusing the organisation of promoting sustainability rhetoric while simultaneously expanding competitions and strengthening ties with fossil fuel sponsors.

The study highlights concerns over future tournaments, noting that Saudi Arabia is set to host the 2034 World Cup while the United States withdrew from the Paris climate agreement under President Donald Trump.

Why this matters

The researchers say the expanded 48-team format for the 2026 Men’s World Cup will significantly increase emissions due to the greater number of matches and the vast travel distances across North America.

The tournament will feature 104 matches across 16 host cities spanning the entire continent. The last Men’s World Cup in 2022, Qatar, saw 64 matches played across the 32-team tournament.

FIFA’s environmental policies are also scrutinised, with the research team accusing the organisation of promoting sustainability rhetoric while simultaneously expanding competitions and strengthening ties with fossil fuel sponsors.

The study also highlights concerns over future tournaments, noting that Saudi Arabia is set to host the 2034 World Cup while the United States withdrew from the Paris climate agreement under President Donald Trump.

What the researchers say

Lead researcher, Dr Mark Doidge, Reader in Sociology of Sport at Loughborough University, said: “Football is the world’s most popular sport, and probably the most popular activity. It is for this reason that football authorities, like FIFA, continue to exploit it for commercial profit."

“Football is also a cultural powerhouse with millions of fans, volunteers, and players trying to make the sport better. Football can, and should, use its influence to mitigate against climate change.”

Dr James Jackson, Lecturer at The University of Manchester, said: “Despite the last World Cup offering a preview of what football would be like in a significantly warmer world, FIFA has remained indifferent to better regulation. Rather than being proactive and ensuring football helps mitigate against the worst impacts of climate change, they are - at best - pursuing meagre adaptation measures for things which affect fans and players."

Dr Oscar Berglund, Senior Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy at the University of Bristol, said: “FIFA has made elite men’s football the primary target of Petrostate sportswashing. This World Cup, with the ridiculous Trump Peace Prize and having Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest polluter, as its main sponsor, reaches new levels.

“It has been a key strategy of Petrostates to use football’s unrivalled cultural influence globally. They don’t need to convince us that fossil fuels are good, just that they are inevitable. So, as we watch and love our beautiful game, we come to accept the necessary evil of fossil capital.”

Club sustainability and commercial pressure

As part of the study, researchers interviewed sustainability managers working in football clubs across Europe, many of whom described tensions between environmental targets and the commercial demands of the modern game.

According to the report, sustainability initiatives are often only approved if they do not disrupt football’s core product, including the scheduling and broadcasting of matches.

Some interviewees said clubs remained more focused on increasing revenues than reducing environmental costs, despite the growing financial risks posed by flooding, heatwaves and fixture disruption.

Recommendations

The investigation proposes a series of recommendations aimed at reducing football’s environmental impact.

• FIFA should stop awarding tournaments to Petrostates.
• Restrictions should be placed on fossil fuel ownership of clubs.
• Fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship should be banned in football.
• Football authorities should halt the expansion of competitions.
• Sustainability managers should be embedded into all levels of club decision-making rather than operating in isolated compliance roles.

FIFA response

FIFA has previously defended its sustainability strategies and said major tournaments can drive investment, infrastructure and development in host nations. The organisation has also said that expanding competitions increases global participation and opportunities for smaller footballing nations.

Publication details

To read the full report, click here. The findings will form part of Football and Climate Change: The Unsustainability of the Beautiful Game, due to be published in 2027.

Professor Woodward is a geomorphologist and geoarchaeologist whose research spans river systems, microplastics in river catchments, Mediterranean geomorphology, Ice Age environments and long-term environmental change. His work explores how landscapes and river systems respond to environmental pressures over timescales ranging from the deep past to the present day.

The research found that large-scale tree planting, restoration schemes and expanding plantations have likely transformed woodland cover across parts of the country over the past decade.

But the study also warns that headline gains can hide a more complicated picture, with native woodlands still being lost in some areas even as overall tree cover increases.

Key findings

• India gained around 2.1 million hectares of tropical dry woodland between 2014 and 2024

• Government forest lands saw major gains linked to restoration and afforestation programmes

• Many woodland increases outside government lands appear likely to be linked to timber and tree-crop plantations

• Researchers also recorded continued woodland loss in some important native forest areas

• Scientists say national tree-cover figures can mask important differences between natural forests and plantations

What did the study find?

The study mapped changes in India’s tropical dry woodlands - which cover vast areas of the country, but have received far less scientific and conservation attention than tropical rainforests - over a ten-year period using high-resolution satellite imagery.

The researchers found a large overall increase in woodland cover across the country, driven partly by major government-backed restoration efforts including the Green India Mission, the Compensatory Afforestation Fund and the National Afforestation Programme.

The findings suggest these schemes are having a visible impact on the landscape.

Where are the new woodlands appearing?

The study found contrasting patterns inside and outside government-managed forest land.

Within state-administered forest areas, researchers say gains are likely linked to restoration and conservation programmes aimed at increasing forest cover and meeting climate goals.

Outside government lands, however, many gains appear to come from commercial timber plantations and tree crops in agricultural landscapes.

Why this matters

India’s tropical dry woodlands are among the country’s most important but overlooked ecosystems.

They support wildlife, store carbon and provide livelihoods for millions of people, especially in poorer rural regions.

Researchers say understanding exactly what kind of woodland is increasing - and where - matters for biodiversity, climate policy and local communities.

Tree cover is not always the same as forest recovery

The researchers warn that national statistics showing rising tree cover do not always mean natural forests are recovering.

Some native dry woodlands inside protected or government-managed areas continued to experience losses during the study period.

Scientists say plantations can provide economic and climate benefits, but they may not fully replace the biodiversity and ecological value of long-established natural woodlands.

How researchers tracked the changes

The team used satellite imagery to reconstruct changes in woodland cover across India between 2014 and 2024 at very high detail.

This allowed them to identify where woodland was expanding, where it was being lost, and how those patterns differed across landscapes and land ownership types.

What the researchers said

“Our study shows that India has seen substantial gains in dry woodland cover over the past decade,” said lead author Dhanapal Govindarajulu. “A lot of this appears linked to major restoration and afforestation programmes, which demonstrates the scale of change that government policy can achieve - but we also found that not all woodland gains are the same.”

Why it matters now

Countries around the world are pledging large-scale tree planting and forest restoration as part of climate and biodiversity targets.

Researchers say the study highlights the importance of looking beyond headline numbers to understand whether restoration efforts are protecting natural ecosystems, supporting wildlife and benefiting local communities.

Publication details

The research was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae61cb

Bangladesh has just approved one of the largest river engineering projects its history: the Padma Barrage, a vast river-control project intended to restore water in the country’s drought-prone southwest.

It comes at a dangerous moment for South Asia’s rivers. China is building the world’s largest hydropower dam upstream on the Brahmaputra, India is accelerating its own dam-building programme, and the treaty governing Ganges water-sharing between India and Bangladesh expires in December 2026.

Rather than easing regional water insecurity, the Padma Barrage risks adding to a cycle of unilateral river engineering across the subcontinent. South Asia is entering a regional dam-building race – without the institutions needed to share its rivers.

Bangladesh’s water crisis

Supporters say the barrage is a pragmatic response to chronic water insecurity in Bangladesh. The country sits at the end of the vast Ganges-Brahmaputra river system, where rivers that originate in the Himalayas spread into thousands of channels before they reach the sea. Despite all this water, the main river channels are drying up in summer and some smaller rivers are disappearing rapidly.

The Farakka Barrage in India, and the proposed Padma Barrage downstream. 

Bangladesh did not create this problem alone. Since the 1970s, the Farakka Barrage, built across the Ganges upstream in India, has diverted water towards the huge city of Kolkata to flush sediment away from its port.

The consequences for Bangladesh are well documented. Its rivers have dried up and become less navigable. They have also become saltier, groundwater levels have declined, and severe riverbank erosion has occurred.

Farming has become more difficult and fish stocks have declined. These environmental pressures have forced many people to migrate out of the country.

Most critically, the reduced flow of freshwater has harmed the Sundarbans — the world’s largest mangrove forest, shared between Bangladesh and India. There, elevated salinity has caused widespread “top dying” among mangrove trees and significant biodiversity loss.

The promise – and risks – of Padma Barrage

When complete, the centrepiece of the Padma Barrage will be a huge dam more than two kilometres long. It is designed to store water during the monsoon season and release it in the drier months, helping reduce salinity intrusion by maintaining freshwater flows and pushing saline water further downstream during the dry season.

In theory, the barrage will revive a host of smaller rivers in western Bangladesh. The government claims it will support irrigation across much of the country, while increasing rice and fish production.

The proposed Padma Barrage will span the Ganges river system’s largest channel in Bangladesh.

Yet the project raises a series of ecological and geopolitical concerns that deserve serious scrutiny.

The most immediate relates to silt, because the Ganges is an exceptionally sediment-heavy river. A dam or barrage causes the river water to lose speed and the energy required to carry sediment, which is dumped upstream.

This is already a severe problem upstream of the Farakka Barrage. More than a million people have been displaced from riverbank communities over the past three decades, as banks have been eroded and floods have become more intense.

Constructing a second major barrier downstream – the Padma Barrage – risks compounding these effects, potentially trapping additional sediment loads between the two structures and intensifying flooding pressure.

The consequences downstream could be equally serious. The diversion of water into southwestern river channels — the stated objective of the project — implies reduced flows in the main river systems. If these flows aren’t strong enough to push back salty tidal waters, then parts of coastal Bangladesh, rather than benefiting from improved water security, could face accelerating salinisation.

There is a deeper irony here. Bangladesh is responding to the damage caused by India’s Farakka Barrage with a major barrage of its own.

Farakka was built to solve an economic problem upstream, but imposed major environmental costs downstream in Bangladesh. Those economic problems are still unsolved – Kolkata port still suffers from silt and needs constant dredging.

Critics fear the Padma Barrage could reproduce the same pattern: large environmental disruption without the promised benefits. In other words, the same engineering approach that damaged Bangladesh may soon be reproduced within that country.

A regional struggle over rivers

The project also depends on sufficient water continuing to flow into Bangladesh. But China damming the Brahmaputra – alongside planned hydropower projects across India, including plans to link its major rivers – could significantly reduce the volume of water entering Bangladesh in future. If that happens, the Padma Barrage may not have enough water to work as intended.

The timing also matters. The 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty between India and Bangladesh expires in December 2026, and governs the same flows the Padma Barrage is designed to manage. Rather than strengthening Bangladesh’s position ahead of treaty talks, the project could weaken its case for demanding more water from India by signalling that it can cope with reduced flows.

Several rivers that the barrage aims to revive flow through both India and Bangladesh, meaning restoration will require cooperation between the two countries, rather than infrastructure alone.

That makes Bangladesh’s 2025 accession to the UN Watercourses Convention particularly significant. As the first South Asian country to join the treaty, Bangladesh now has a stronger legal basis to push for more equitable water-sharing, particularly as the Ganges treaty negotiations approach.

Dams cannot replace diplomacy

The Padma Barrage is not an inherently misconceived project. Bangladesh’s water crisis is real, and the political pressure to respond is genuine.

But without renewed water-sharing agreements and stronger cooperation with neighbouring countries, this new barrage risks repeating the pattern of unilateral river engineering that has already destabilised South Asia’s waterways.

Infrastructure that outpaces diplomacy is a familiar reason for failure in the region. The challenge for Bangladesh is to ensure the barrage becomes part of a strong legal and diplomatic framework for river cooperation – not another step in an escalating cycle of hydropolitical competition.

Mehebub Sahana, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Geography, The University of Manchester and Bayes Ahmed, Associate Professor in Risk and Disaster Science, UCL

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The research, published in Biological Conservation, found that more than 493,000 square kilometres of land - an area larger than Spain - has been damaged by deforestation and fires in the vital transition zone between the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savanna in Brazil.

The team - led by Dr Chuanze Li from The University of Manchester - say the findings reveal a major conservation crisis in a region that helps protect the wider Amazon, stores huge amounts of carbon and supports exceptional biodiversity but has very little formal protection.

Key findings

• Researchers mapped more than 35 years of environmental damage using AI and satellite imagery

• At least 493,000 km² of land has been affected by deforestation or fire

• Large areas damaged by fire still had not recovered even after a decade

• Only around 2% of the study region currently has formal protection

• Repeated human-caused fires may be permanently changing ecosystems

What did the study find?

The research focused on the Cerrado-Amazon transition (CAT) zone in Brazil, a vast area where rainforest and savanna meet.

Using decades of Landsat satellite images combined with artificial intelligence, researchers tracked how forests and vegetation changed between 1986 and 2020.

They found widespread damage caused by both large-scale forest clearing and repeated fires linked to farming expansion and cattle ranching.

Why this region matters

This area is one of the world’s most important ecological frontiers, and acts as a buffer protecting the Amazon while supporting unique wildlife and storing carbon that would otherwise contribute to climate change if released.

But despite its importance, the region has received far less attention and protection than the Amazon rainforest itself.

Fires leave long-lasting scars

One of the study’s most striking findings was how slowly vegetation recovered after fire. Researchers found that even ten years later, many affected areas had still not returned to their previous condition.

The damage was particularly severe in parts of the Cerrado, where repeated human-driven burning appears to be weakening the ecosystem’s natural ability to recover.

A hidden protection gap

The study also exposed a major lack of protected areas across the region. While around 28% of the Amazon biome overall is protected, only around 2% of the Cerrado–Amazon transition area studied falls within protected zones.

Researchers warn that large areas facing repeated destruction currently have little or no legal safeguard.

How AI helped uncover the damage

The team combined satellite imagery with advanced artificial intelligence tools capable of detecting different types of environmental disturbance over time.

This allowed researchers to distinguish between forest clearing and fire damage across an enormous area spanning more than one million square kilometres.

What the Manchester researchers said

“The tools we used enabled us to produce the first wall-to-wall, multi-decade picture of what has actually happened to vegetation across this entire area,” said lead author Dr Chuanze Li.

“We were particularly struck by the recovery data,” said Dr Angela Harris. “The conventional view is that Cerrado vegetation bounces back after fire. What this study shows - at a regional scale and across 35 years - is that it often does not, at least not within a decade.”

"Repeated fires are eroding the very resilience these ecosystems evolved to have - this is a warning that we cannot ignore."

"This study gives policymakers something they have not had before: a precise, long-term map of where the CAT has been damaged, how badly, and how well, or how poorly, it is recovering,” added Dr Polyanna da Conceição Bispo. “This is the empirical foundation that conservation planning in this region has been missing. The protection gap we document is not acceptable, and the tools now exist to close it."

Why it matters

Researchers say the maps created by the study could help governments and conservation groups identify areas most urgently in need of protection, fire prevention and restoration.

They also warn that continued destruction in the transition zone could have consequences far beyond Brazil, affecting biodiversity, climate stability and the future health of the Amazon rainforest itself.

Publication details

The study was conducted by researchers at The University of Manchester (UK),  Professor Beatriz Marimon and Professor Ben Hur Marimon at UNEMAT – Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso (Brazil), and Dr. Ricardo da Silva at CTREES (USA). Field data from the Plant Ecology Laboratory at UNEMAT, a reference network spanning the CAT since 1994, underpinned the classification and validation of satellite-derived disturbance maps.

The paper was published in the Biological Conservation journal.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2026.111900

Thousands of holes are appearing in the Pennine hills, as part of efforts to improve carbon storage by restoring damaged peatland.

Peat itself is carbon rich and so as it grows it will help to capture the CO₂ that is produced by industrial fossil fuel use that is warming the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, damaged or drained peatlands turn into a carbon source, releasing greenhouses gases themselves. About 15% of the world’s peatlands have been drained, making these kind of restoration projects essential.

But now a new project is attempting to bring these wetlands back to life. On Holcombe Moor in the West Pennines, 3,000 bunds were created in 2021, with a further 700 in 2024 as part of Natural England’s Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme. Improvements are already starting to be seen.

What’s the history here?

The hills of the West Pennines are no stranger to holes, with a long history of lead and coal mining stretching back to the Roman period.

Coal fired the mills nearby during the industrial revolution in cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. Smoke drifted back to the hills, carrying the heavy metal impurities of lead and arsenic from coal burning.

The industrial legacy remains visible in the elevated concentrations of heavy metals near the soil surface, which made it difficult for most plants to survive. Areas were stripped of all vegetation, leaving expanses of exposed soil. In the most affected places, these erosional gullies cut deep into the surface, turning places like Kinder Scout into a moonscape.

What was exposed and eroded so quickly had taken over 8,000 years to form. Much of the Pennines are covered in blanket peatland, a type of bog made through the slow accumulation of partially decayed plant matter (the type of soil we call peat).

The conditions for peat to form require a delicate balance, with the water table maintained high enough to limit the decomposition of plant matter, while still allowing plants to grow. Not just any plant can tolerate these harsh growing conditions. One species is truly specialised to bog life and forms the main building block of peat itself – Sphagnum.

Finding a super moss

Sphagnum moss is the key ecosystem engineer in peatlands, holding up to 20 times its weight in water to maintain the saturated conditions needed for its growth.

When in a healthy state, new Sphagnum grows up through the older moss, raising the water table with it to leave the older moss submerged, partially decayed, which forms the peat itself. Bogs grow only millimetres per year, but over millennia this can build several metres of peat.

The organic nature of peat means it is carbon rich, so much so that UK peatlands store over 3 billion tonnes of carbon, around ten times more than all UK woodland carbon stocks.

Restored wetlands could also help protect the area from wildfires at the UK starts to see more extreme temperatures.

Human pressure and pollution

With human pressures, including past industrial pollution, bog growth has been disrupted. Sphagnum has disappeared from these peatlands.

Now, peatland restoration efforts are under way. From the early 2000s organisations including Moors for the Future Partnership have spent decades blocking gullies to raise water tables, reseeding bare peat and planting Sphagnum moss, transforming the worst affected peatlands from dark moonscapes to vibrant green moss-scapes.

Though blocking erosional gullies with stone or timber dams has proven successful in deeply eroded peat, restoring flatter moorland plateaux presents a different set of challenges. Namely, how to restore the wet conditions required to encourage more Sphagnum moss to grow. However, this hasn’t stopped restoration organisations from trying a novel restoration method which might work to restore flatter peatlands.

Five years on from the start of the project, the original bunds are covered with grasses and many pools are now brimming with Sphagnum moss, looking more like natural bog pools.

Scallop bunds are crescent-shaped pools, created by digging shallow scrapes in the peat surface using special low impact excavators. The aim is to capture surface water which would otherwise run quickly off the hill after rainfall. The water stored in bund pools helps to maintain wetter conditions at the bog surface for Sphagnum moss to re-establish and grow on moorland plateaus.

The National Trust, in partnership with the University of Manchester, is undertaking long-term research to understand the potential for bunds as a peatland restoration method.

The 2025 drought followed one of the driest springs in England for over 100 years.

It provided the first test of extreme weather in this peat bund experiment. Preliminary monitoring during the 2025 drought suggests bunded areas remained wetter for longer than unrestored peat, helping to maintain wetter conditions near the peat surface for longer – the conditions required to support Sphagnum growth.

The excavator machines up on the hills today don’t signal a return to the industrial past, but an attempt to restore the damage it left behind.

Adam Johnston, Honorary Research Associate in Peatland Hydrology, The University of Manchester

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

- Countries with higher climate vulnerability attract fewer international students
- Strong climate adaptation readiness significantly boosts student inflows
- Major climate summits such as COP15 and COP21 marked a turning point in student decision-making
- Economic factors still matter, but students increasingly weigh climate risk and resilience
- China, India and other emerging hubs could gain market share through stronger climate action and growing academic strength

What did the study find?

The study examined global student mobility patterns over two decades. Researchers found that a destination country’s climate vulnerability significantly reduced its attractiveness to prospective international students.

By contrast, countries with stronger climate adaptation readiness - meaning they are better prepared to respond to climate risks such as extreme weather, heat and infrastructure disruption - saw significantly higher student inflows.

Why climate now matters to students

Traditionally, international students have been drawn by factors such as prestigious universities, stronger economies, language links and career opportunities - but the study found this picture has changed.

Major global climate summits, including the Copenhagen Accord (COP15) in 2009 and the Paris Agreement (COP21) in 2015, acted as key turning points. After these moments, student choices increasingly reflected a country’s climate readiness and vulnerability, not just its economic strength.

A new competition for global talent

The findings suggest countries are now competing for students not only on education quality, but also on resilience, liveability and long-term stability. This could reshape the global higher education market in the years ahead.

Researchers found that proactive climate adaptation, combined with rising university capacity, could help emerging destinations such as China and India capture a larger share of international students.

Who could lose out?

The study suggests some traditional destinations could face growing pressure if climate vulnerability worsens or if progress on adaptation stalls.

Researchers say climate preparedness may increasingly influence how students judge future safety, quality of life and opportunity in a host country.

What the researchers said

“International students are making one of the biggest decisions of their lives when choosing where to study,” said Dr Haoyu Hu.

“Our findings suggest they are not only thinking about degrees and careers, but also about what kind of future a country offers - whether it feels safe, stable and prepared for climate change.”

Dr Hu is based at The University of Manchester, which has been recognised globally for its social and environmental impact and is the only university in the world to rank in the top ten of both the QS World University Sustainability Rankings and the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings. 

The rankings recognise universities’ contributions towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including research, teaching, public engagement and campus operations aimed at creating a healthier, fairer and more sustainable future. 

Why this matters

International students contribute billions to economies, strengthen research systems and help fill skills gaps.

The researchers say governments and universities may need to treat climate resilience as part of their international education strategy - from greener campuses and better infrastructure to stronger public climate policy.

They also say support is needed for climate-vulnerable countries, so global talent flows do not become even more unequal.

Publication details

The study was published in the Nature Portfolio journal Communications Sustainability.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44458-026-00061-7 

What are the implications?

The researchers say the findings provide strong evidence for investing in high-quality, community-designed green spaces, particularly in disadvantaged areas.

They argue that urban park improvements could form a key part of strategies to improve public health, support wellbeing and create more equitable cities.

Publication details

The study was published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-026-01918-9

"There is an urgent need for a national spatial vision to address entrenched spatial inequalities across the UK. Delivering innovative policy and practice is best achieved through close collaboration between research and professional practice, combining reflexive professional insight with emerging digital opportunities. We are living through a period of uncertainty, but it is also a moment ripe for creative and ambitious discussion.”

• Growing global demand for beef is a major driver of deforestation in the Amazon
• Up to 80% of cleared forest land is converted into cattle pasture
• Higher land values after deforestation create strong financial incentives to clear forests
• Gaps in supply chain oversight allow deforestation to continue
• New framework identifies where interventions could have the greatest impact

What did the study find?

The research focuses on the Brazilian Amazon, where cattle farming is a leading cause of deforestation. It shows that decisions made by farmers are shaped by a powerful mix of global market demand, land prices and government policies. 

In many cases, clearing forest actually increases land value, creating a cycle where deforestation leads to profit – and to more deforestation. At the same time, environmental rules and sustainability initiatives often fail to fully reach the people making land-use decisions on the ground. 

Why does this matter to people?

Although the Amazon may feel far away, the study highlights how everyday consumption is connected to environmental change. Beef sold around the world in supermarkets and restaurants can be linked back to land-use decisions in the rainforest. 

The consequences are global. The Amazon plays a vital role in storing carbon and regulating the climate. As forests are cleared, this contributes to climate change, biodiversity loss and more extreme weather patterns worldwide.

What makes this study different?

Most research looks either at economic systems or environmental systems, but rarely both together. This study introduces a new approach that connects global supply chains with local ecosystems, showing how they influence each other in real time. It reveals that environmental damage is not just an unintended side effect – it is built into how global production systems operate. 

Where are the biggest challenges?

A key issue is that governance systems are fragmented. Governments, companies, and environmental organisations often work separately, with limited coordination.

For example, large meat companies may enforce sustainability rules for direct suppliers, but indirect suppliers — where much deforestation occurs — can slip through the cracks. 

At the same time, smaller farmers often lack access to credit or technical support, making it harder for them to adopt more sustainable practices. 

What are the solutions?

The study highlights several key opportunities to reduce deforestation:

• Strengthening enforcement of environmental laws
• Improving traceability across supply chains
• Supporting farmers with finance and training
• Rewarding conservation through incentives like payments for ecosystem services

Importantly, the research shows that no single solution will work on its own — progress depends on better coordination across global and local systems. 

Why this research matters now

As global demand for beef continues to grow, pressure on the Amazon is expected to increase. The researchers say their findings provide a clearer roadmap for policymakers, businesses and organisations trying to balance economic growth with environmental protection, and offers a new way to tackle one of the world’s most urgent environmental challenges. 

The study was conducted by an international team of researchers from The University of Manchester and Brazil’s Fundação Getulio Vargas São Paulo School of Business Administration, and is published in Competition & Change.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10245294261444096 

The researchers created a new physics-based module that allows heat produced by urban traffic to be represented directly within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) – one of the world’s most widely used global climate models for predicting how the Earth’s climate behaves.

By adding urban traffic-related heat processes directly into the numerical model, the team were able to show how vehicles can measurably raise temperatures in cities and influence how heat moves between roads, buildings and the surrounding air.

The study, published in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, used real-world traffic data, supplied by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), alongside open datasets to validate the model for Manchester, UK, and Toulouse, France.

Lead author Dr Zhonghua Zheng, Co-Lead for Environmental Data Science & AI at Manchester Environmental Research Institute (MERI) and Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Data Science & Environmental Analytics at The University of Manchester, said: “Research on urban heat has traditionally focused on buildings, materials and land surfaces. However, the direct heat produced by vehicles – from engines, exhausts and braking – has received far less attention in large-scale climate models.”

In Manchester, the results showed that traffic heat increased simulated air temperatures by around 0.16°C during summer and 0.35°C in winter. The scientists say that while these temperature increases may appear small, they can make a meaningful difference during extreme heat events.

During the July 2022 UK heatwave, the model suggests that traffic-related heat contributed to increases in human heat stress indicators, pushing the “feels like” temperature above dangerous thresholds for longer periods.

The study also found that traffic heat does not just affect outdoor temperatures, but indoor temperatures too. Heat released at street level can transfer into buildings, increasing the need for air conditioning in summer.

Unlike previous approaches, the new model can also simulate different types of vehicles – including petrol, diesel, hybrid and electric vehicles – and can respond to changes in traffic patterns and weather conditions.

This means scientists and stakeholders can explore how shifts in transport systems, such as the move toward electric vehicles, could change how much heat traffic adds to urban environments.

The work could help cities better understand how transport policy and the transition to cleaner vehicles may influence future climate resilience.

Yuan Sun, first author of this paper and PhD researcher from The University of Manchester, added: “We would like to highlight the importance of considering transport systems when planning for climate adaptation, urban cooling strategies and net-zero transitions.”

Sending waste to landfill generally produces the highest levels of net greenhouse gas emissions of any waste treatment option. While it’s a common belief that anything placed in a ‘black bag’ or general waste bin ends up in landfill, this isn’t always the case; landfill plays a much smaller role in the UK waste industry than it used to – and has been eliminated on campus in relation to the University’s two main waste contracts.

Instead of landfill, the University’s non-recyclable general waste now goes through a process known as Energy from Waste (EfW), a waste management method that converts non-recyclables into electricity and heat. Once waste is collected on campus, it is transported to a waste transfer station nearby, where it is ‘bulked up’ before being sent to an EfW facility.

At the EfW facility, it is burned under safe and controlled conditions. The process of burning the waste generates heat, which is then used to power steam turbines and produce electricity, ensuring that every by-product (which includes ash and metals) is recovered and reused, meaning nothing goes to landfill.

The University will remain committed to creating a sustainable campus, by looking at reducing waste to keep products, parts, and materials in use for as long as possible, to strengthen its circular economy.

Sarah Choi, Environmental Sustainability Manager, said: "Achieving Zero Landfill shows what's possible when we work together to align our processes with our sustainability goals. It's a huge step in our environmental ambitions and strengthens our commitment to create a more circular, responsible campus."

The University has a commitment to be zero carbon by 2038, and last year began powering its campus with clean, renewable electricity from a major new solar farm. The University ended all investments in fossil fuels in 2022.

To find out more about this and other commitments around waste, transport and nature, visit the Sustainability website.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14649934261426727 

Although focused on Mexico, the findings have global relevance as countries accelerate restoration pledges and international initiatives led by organisations such as the United Nations. The researchers hope their work will help policymakers to design fairer, more effective restoration strategies, ensuring that efforts to restore nature also strengthen communities and deliver lasting benefits for people and the planet.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.70351

The paper, authored by the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub at The University of Manchester, explores the consequences of terminology choices on end-of-life solutions for plastic waste. While recycling has long been touted as a solution for plastic sustainability - it comes in many forms, and can sometimes serve as a smokescreen for genuine discussions around sustainability.

The researchers, Seiztinger, Lahive, and Shaver, find directional terms - such as ‘upcycling’ and ‘downcycling’ - to be poorly defined as value propositions, and that their use can skew perceptions of the benefits, potentially posing barrier to circularity.

‘Downcycling’, for instance, implies the production of a less favourable or ‘less good’ material as the end product of the recycling process, while ‘upcycling’ has positive connotations. However, despite what these terms suggest, a ‘downcycled’ stream may produce a high value product, while an ‘upcycled’ path may have a greater negative environmental impact than alternative routes.

Using these terms assigns disproportionate value to certain end-of-life plastic solution strategies, and can be used by supporters or detractors of different recycling technologies to obscure genuine evaluation of their environmental impact.

The study, published in the journal Cambridge Prisms: Plastics, suggests that plastic waste solutions consistently fail to live up to their marketed messaging, and that clearer communication of the true value of the product from a recycling process is essential to drive investment in proper plastic waste management. Corresponding author Professor Michael Shaver, Professor of Polymer Science at The University of Manchester, said: “The confused terminology surrounding the fate of waste plastic often lacks a consideration of value and unintended consequences. As these terms are now being used to promote technologies outside of a sustainable system, we felt it important to argue for clarity and caution when presuming quality from this directional terminology.”

The researchers argue that no single solution offers a quick fix, and that it is wrong for the terminology to suggest otherwise. They call for greater clarity over how we value end-products. They suggest a ‘spiral system’ of reuse, in which plastic materials are treated as complex mixtures that, like crude oil, can be chemically deconstructed at the end of their life and transformed to become a huge range of longer-lasting products over their lifetime.

For example, a yoghurt pot could be reconstituted into car parts, and then after that into a park bench. Ultimately, after many years of service, it could be chemically deconstructed, and turned back into a yoghurt pot. As the polypropylene in such simple packaging is already used in cars, hard shell suitcases, garden furniture, appliances, and plumbing, a cross-sector approach to reuse of plastic waste could generate more value than an approach focused solely on single-use packaging.

By moving away from direction-loaded terminology, researchers suggest that plastic waste solutions can be judged on the measurable environmental and economic value of the end-products, rather than an assumed or subjective value based on language, that is not always supported by full life-cycle assessment or economic analysis.

Dr Claire Seitzinger added: “Building a circular plastics economy means looking at the whole system, not isolated solutions pitched against each other. Policy, industry, innovation and collaboration across sectors are essential for a sustainable future. The next time you eat a yoghurt, where do you want the pot to end up? Should it become another yoghurt pot? A park bench? A car? What is best? And what should you, the packaging producer, or the government do to make that to happen?”

Paper details:

Journal: Cambridge Prisms: Plastics 

Full title: Up, down and back again: Value judgements in polymer recycling

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/plc.2026.10041.pr1

For many years, I lived in the Indian city of Chennai where the summer temperatures can reach up to 44°C. With a population of 4.5 million, this coastal city is humid and hot.

Its suburbs are home to 600 Hindu temples and there’s a wildlife reserve called Guindy national park in the heart of the city. Trees line some of the streets but green parks are few and far between – as is the shade.

As urbanisation accelerates across India and the rest of the developing world, urban forests become more vital. These clusters of trees in parks, gardens, public spaces and along roads and rivers in urban areas have multiple benefits – from cooling the surrounding air to providing homes for wildlife and creating space for people to enjoy nature. Yet they are often overlooked by city developers.

My research shows that, in Chennai, there are 26 square miles of tree and other vegetation cover, mainly accounted for by formal green spaces such as Guindy wildlife reserve. On the outskirts of this city, an area of nine square miles of unused land is ideally suited to creating more urban forest. Similarly, there is more potential space for urban forests in other fast urbanising Indian cities like Coimbatore and Tiruchirapalli.

Global urban planning guidelines recommend having at least 30% tree cover in urban areas. The World Health Organization suggests that cities should allow for nine square metres of urban tree cover per person. Most Indian cities don’t meet this requirement.

Improving urban forests in India has been a challenge for many years due to high land prices, lack of urban planning and little public participation in tree-planting initiatives.

Policies introduced by the Indian government to “green” urban areas often equate tree planting with cooling cities and building climate resilience. But it’s not that simple. The success of urban forests depends on factors such as rainfall, understanding interactions with local wildlife and people’s needs.

A recent study warns that in hot, dry cities with limited water availability like Chennai, trees slow the cooling process by water evaporation from leaves and instead contribute to urban heat. Urban heat comes from the reflection and absorption of sunlight by buildings and land surfaces. This is particularly high in growing smaller Indian cities with populations of 1 to 5 million.

Planting trees with the sole aim of cooling cities could negatively affect wildlife too. Not all birds, bugs and mammals depend on trees for food or shelter. A study from researchers in Bengaluru, India, shows that non-native tree species contribute little to bird richness. Meanwhile, urban grasslands and marshlands that are often misclassified as “waste land” support wildlife and help regulate flooding.

In India, cities and villages have open “common” land where people graze their cattle or harvest fuelwood from trees that grow naturally there – tree-planting initiatives in these open land areas can displace poorer communities of people who rely on open lands for grazing and fuel wood collection.

Design with nature

Urban forests can be planned to meet the needs of people, birds and other wildlife.

In 1969, Ian McHarg, the late Scottish landscape architect and urban planner came up with the concept of “design with nature”, where development has a minimal negative effect on the environment. His idea was to preserve existing natural forests by proposing site suitability assessments. By analysing factors such as rivers and streams, soil type, slope and drainage, McHarg’s approach still helps planners to identify which areas suit development and which are best preserved for nature.

This approach has advanced with new technology. Now, geographic information systems and satellite imagery help planners integrate environmental data and identify suitable areas for planting new trees or conserving urban forests.

Using the principles of landscape ecology, urban planners can design forest patches in a way that enhances the connectivity of green spaces in a city, rather than uniformly planting trees across all open spaces. By designing these “ecological corridors”, trees along roads or canals, for example, can help link fragmented green spaces.

Planting native tree species suited to dry and drought-prone environments is also crucial, as is assessing the local community’s needs for native fruit-bearing trees that provide food.

Growing urban forests

By 2030, one-third of India’s electricity demand is expected to come from cooling equipment such as air conditioning. Increasing urban forests could help reduce this need for more energy.

National-level policies could support urban forest expansion across India. In 2014, the government of India released its urban greenery guidelines and flagship urban renewal programmes such as the Smart Cities Mission have tried to increase tree cover. But guidelines often overlook critical considerations like ecological connectivity, native species and local community needs.

In 2020, the government of India launched Nagar Van Yojana (a scheme to improve tree cover in cities) with a budget of around US$94 million (£70 million). It aims to create urban forests through active participation of citizens, government agencies and private companies. But there is little evidence that urban forest cover has improved.

Urbanisation reduced tree cover in most Indian cities, and much of it was rather unplanned. But by protecting and planting more trees, citizens can live in greener, cooler cities. By shifting urban forest policy from counting trees to designing landscapes, plans that enhance climate resilience, nature conservation and social equity can be put into practice.

Dhanapal Govindarajulu, Postgraduate Researcher, Climate Adaptation, The University of Manchester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The exhibition runs until 28 February 2026. The curators, Dr Martin Dodge and Professor Richard Brook, have created a dynamic composition to which they will continually add material during its run.

Beyond advancing ecological science, the research could provide vital tools for tracking soil carbon storage, monitoring land degradation, and supporting sustainable land management in the face of climate change. 

“This research opens up a powerful new window into Earth’s hidden biodiversity, providing a way to map and monitor soil biodiversity at large scales in a cost-effective way,” said Professor Bardgett.

The Ganges, a lifeline for hundreds of millions across South Asia, is drying at a rate scientists say is unprecedented in recorded history. Climate change, shifting monsoons, relentless extraction and damming are pushing the mighty river towards collapse, with consequences for food, water and livelihoods across the region.

For centuries, the Ganges and its tributaries have sustained one of the world’s most densely populated regions. Stretching from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the whole river basin supports over 650 million people, a quarter of India’s freshwater, and much of its food and economic value. Yet new research reveals the river’s decline is accelerating beyond anything seen in recorded history.

In recent decades, scientists have documented alarming transformations across many of the world’s big rivers, but the Ganges stands apart for its speed and scale.

In a new study, scientists reconstructed streamflow records going back 1,300 years to show that the basin has faced its worst droughts over the period in just the last few decades. And those droughts are well outside the range of natural climate variability.

Stretches of river that once supported year-round navigation are now impassable in summer. Large boats that once travelled the Ganges from Bengal and Bihar through Varanasi and Allahabad now run aground where water once flowed freely. Canals that used to irrigate fields for weeks longer a generation ago now dry up early. Even some wells that protected families for decades are yielding little more than a trickle.

Global climate models have failed to predict the severity of this drying, pointing to something deeply unsettling: human and environmental pressures are combining in ways we don’t yet understand.

Water has been diverted into irrigation canals, groundwater has been pumped for agriculture, and industries have proliferated along the river’s banks. More than a thousand dams and barrages have radically altered the river itself. And as the world warms, the monsoon which feeds the Ganges has grown increasingly erratic. The result is a river system increasingly unable to replenish itself.

Melting glaciers, vanishing rivers

At the river’s source high in the Himalayas, the Gangotri glacier has retreated nearly a kilometer in just two decades. The pattern is repeating across the world’s largest mountain range, as rising temperatures are melting glaciers faster than ever.

Initially, this brings sudden floods from glacial lakes. In the long-run, it means far less water flowing downstream during the dry season.

These glaciers are often termed the “water towers of Asia”. But as those towers shrink, the summer flow of water in the Ganges and its tributaries is dwindling too.

Humans are making things worse

The reckless extraction of groundwater is aggravating the situation. The Ganges-Brahmaputra basin is one of the most rapidly depleting aquifers in the world, with water levels falling by 15–20 millimeters each year. Much of this groundwater is already contaminated with arsenic and fluoride, threatening both human health and agriculture.

The role of human engineering cannot be ignored either. Projects like the Farakka Barrage in India have reduced dry-season flows into Bangladesh, making the land saltier and threatening the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. Decisions to prioritise short-term economic gains have undermined the river’s ecological health.

Across northern Bangladesh and West Bengal, smaller rivers are already drying up in the summer, leaving communities without water for crops or livestock. The disappearance of these smaller tributaries is a harbinger of what may happen on a larger scale if the Ganges itself continues its downward spiral. If nothing changes, experts warn that millions of people across the basin could face severe food shortages within the next few decades.

Saving the Ganges

The need for urgent, coordinated action cannot be overstated. Piecemeal solutions will not be enough. It’s time for a comprehensive rethinking of how the river is managed.

That will mean reducing unsustainable extraction of groundwater so supplies can recharge. It will mean environmental flow requirements to keep enough water in the river for people and ecosystems. And it will require improved climate models that integrate human pressures (irrigation and damming, for example) with monsoon variability to guide water policy.

Transboundary cooperation is also a must. India, Bangladesh and Nepal must do better at sharing data, managing dams, and planning for climate change. International funding and political agreements must treat rivers like the Ganges as global priorities. Above all, governance must be inclusive, so local voices shape river restoration efforts alongside scientists and policymakers.

The Ganges is more than a river. It is a lifeline, a sacred symbol, and a cornerstone of South Asian civilisation. But it is drying faster than ever before, and the consequences of inaction are unthinkable. The time for warnings has passed. We must act now to ensure the Ganges continues to flow – not just for us, but for generations to come.

Mehebub Sahana, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Geography, The University of Manchester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Eviction: A Social History of Rent is available now from Verso Books.

The study sets out clear recommendations for further improvements, based on direct community feedback. These insights are expected to inform future active travel strategies both locally and nationally.

The full report is available here: Evaluation Report – Connecting the Active Quarter.

While pollution levels from road traffic have fallen significantly thanks to policies like the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), new air pollution data from scientists at The University of Manchester, in collaboration with the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), University of York, Zhejiang University and National Centre for Atmospheric Science, reveal emissions from non-road mobile machinery, such as generators and heavy-duty construction equipment, can exceed those from vehicles, particularly in areas where there is a lot of building activity.

Black carbon is soot from combustion and is a component of particulate matter (PM2.5). These are very fine particles that can enter the lungs and bloodstream and are known to damage human health. 

The team collected the pollution measurements from the top of the BT Tower in central London over summer and winter, using a technique called eddy covariance to track how much black carbon is released into the air and where it comes from.

The findings revealed that while pollution levels were significantly lower than cities like Beijing and Delhi, who have monitored pollution using the same method, they are not low enough to meet the World Health Organisation’s guidelines for PM2.5. They suggest similar regulatory attention to road traffic is now needed for the construction sector. 

The study, published in the journal Environmental Sciences: Atmospheres, is the first of its kind in Europe.

At 190 metres tall, the BT Tower observatory has a specialised gas inlet system installed on the tower’s roof, which draws air into a laboratory on the 35th floor, allowing researchers to analyse pollution as it rises from streets, buildings, construction sites and nearby parks below.

The ‘eddy covariance’ method works by measuring the turbulent motion of air, also known as eddies, and the concentration of airborne substances like black carbon within those eddies.

The scientists also conducted a detailed spatial footprint analysis to pinpoint emission hotspots that were directly linked to active construction sites near the BT Tower.

The new findings suggest that further progress in improving London’s air quality will require stricter regulation of construction machinery, especially in rapidly developing areas.

Dr Allen added: “We compared observed emissions with emission standards for construction equipment and found that even with compliance, black carbon output from generators, machinery and construction vehicles remains significant. Our work highlights how measurement techniques like eddy covariance can fill critical gaps in our understanding of urban pollution and support evidence-based strategies to protect public health and the environment.”

This research was published in the journal Environmental Sciences: Atmospheres

Full title: Quantifying black carbon emissions from traffic and construction in central London using eddy covariance

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d5ea00039d

As the UK strives to reach Net Zero emissions by 2050, secure and permanent geological storage of CO₂ is essential to avoid the worst-case consequences of climate change.

Storage in deep geological formations such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers offers a promising solution. However, these underground environments host diverse microbial ecosystems, and their response to CO₂ injection remains poorly understood.

This knowledge gap poses a potential risk to long-term CO₂ storage integrity. While some microbial responses may be beneficial and enhance mineralogical or biological CO₂ sequestration, others could be unfavourable, leading to methane production, corrosion of infrastructure, or loss of injectivity.

The new flagship project with The University of Manchester and Equinor - global leaders in geological CO₂ storage - will investigate how subsurface microbial communities respond to CO₂ injection and storage, highlighting both the potential risks and opportunities posed by these microbes.

Principal Investigator, Prof Sophie Nixon, BBSRC David Phillips and Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellow at The University of Manchester, said: "Over the past 20 years, scientists have tested storing CO₂ underground in real-world conditions, but we still know little about how this affects native and introduced microbes living deep below the surface.

"Previous studies have shown that injecting CO₂ underground actively changes microbial communities. In some cases, microbes initially decline but later recover, potentially influencing the fate of injected CO₂ in geological storage scenarios. However, these studies predate the advent of large-scale metagenomic sequencing approaches. A deep understanding of who is there, what they can do and how they respond to CO₂ storage is crucial for ensuring the long-term success of carbon capture and storage."

The two-year project will collect samples from saline aquifer and oil producing sites to study how microbes living deep underground respond to high concentrations of CO₂ by combining geochemistry, gas isotope analysis, metagenomic and bioinformatic approaches.

Project Co-Investigator, Dr Rebecca Tyne, a Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellow at The University of Manchester, said: “To date, Carbon Capture and Storage research has focused on the physiochemical behaviour of CO₂, yet there has been little consideration of the subsurface microbial impact on CO₂ storage. However, the impact of microbial processes can be significant. For instance, my research has shown that methanogenesis may modify the fluid composition and the fluid dynamics within the storage reservoir.”

Currently, the North Sea Transition Authority requires all carbon capture and storage sites to have a comprehensive ‘Measurement, Monitoring and Verification’ strategy, but microbial monitoring is not yet included in these frameworks. The project’s findings will be shared with industry stakeholders and published in leading scientific journals, helping to close this critical gap and shape future operational activities.

Project Lead, Leanne Walker, Research Associate in Subsurface Microbiology at The University of Manchester, said: "This project will help us understand the underground microbial communities affected by CO₂ storage—how they respond, the potential risks and benefits, and the indicators that reveal these changes.

"Our findings will provide vital insights for assessing microbiological risks at both planned and active CCS sites, ensuring safer and more effective long-term CO₂ storage”.

Biotechnology is enabling us to find new and more sustainable ways to produce chemicals, materials, and everyday products, by understanding and harnessing nature’s own processes and applying them at industrial scales. Supported by the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, our 400+ experts are innovating solutions in environmental sustainability, health and sustainable manufacturing. Find out more about our biotechnology research.  

The treaty suspension reflects a growing regional trend: South Asian countries are increasingly treating water as a strategic asset rather than a shared resource amid rising mistrust, climate stress and geopolitical competition.

The region is home to nearly a quarter of the global population, and relies on huge transboundary rivers fed by Himalayan glaciers – the so-called “Third Pole” of freshwater reserves. A breakdown in water diplomacy could trigger environmental collapse, humanitarian crises and geopolitical instability. The weaponisation of water must be urgently addressed as a global climate justice issue.

A flashpoint occurred in August 2024 when devastating floods affected nearly 5.8 million people in Bangladesh. Some Bangladeshi officials accused India of releasing excess water from a large dam upstream without warning. India denied responsibility, citing extreme rainfall and standard dam operations. Nevertheless, the incident reignited longstanding tensions between the two countries.

Complicating matters further is China recently approving the construction of the world’s largest hydropower project on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet, which becomes the Brahmaputra in India. This massive project has raised alarm about China’s ability to exert control upstream, and the ecological risks for India and Bangladesh downstream.

China hasn’t signed formal water-sharing agreements with its neighbours, but its growing presence in regional water infrastructure signals a dramatic shift in south and east Asian hydro-politics.

Climate change is making things worse

Recent climatic trends are making transboundary rivers an increasing focus of geopolitical friction. These trends include accelerated glacier melt, erratic monsoon patterns, and intensifying extreme weather.

While melting glaciers will temporarily boost the flow of rivers, the long-term prognosis is bleak. If emissions and warming trends continue, many glacier-fed rivers – including the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra – could see dramatically reduced flows by the end of the century. This will directly affect hundreds of millions of people who depend on them.

The crisis is being intensified by changes in the Himalayas. The region is warming faster than the global average, with a shift from snowfall to rainfall that disrupts the timing and volume of water that flows down from the mountains to the fields and cities below.

At the same time, unsustainable groundwater extraction has pushed South Asia’s reserves of underground water toward collapse, threatening both food and water security.

A dangerous precedent

A collapse or suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty could set a dangerous precedent. Importantly, the threat is less about India cutting off water flows – an unlikely and technically challenging act – and more about the erosion of trust, transparency and data sharing.

One of the treaty’s most valuable features has been the routine sharing of data on things like water levels, river flow and dam operations. Pakistan needs this data to forecast floods and droughts, plan its irrigation, generate hydropower effectively and manage its drinking water, yet India is indicating it will no longer honour these obligations.

But India’s strained water relations are not limited to Pakistan. Bangladesh and Nepal have often felt sidelined or pressured in negotiations, and India’s indication that it may reconsider longstanding treaties raises concerns in both countries.

This is especially the case as the Ganges Water Treaty nears its 2026 expiration: the vast Ganges river flows through India and irrigates much of Bangladesh – and the treaty guarantees Bangladesh a minimum river flow.

Other key agreements, such as the Mahakali Treaty and Kosi river accord with Nepal, and the Teesta water-sharing deal with Bangladesh, remain largely unimplemented, breeding mistrust. These failures undermine confidence in regional water diplomacy and cast doubt on India’s commitment to equitable cooperation.

None of this is helped by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh all continuing to rely on outdated irrigation methods that mean they use more water than necessary. As climate change intensifies floods, droughts and glacial melt, there is an urgent need to reform existing water treaties to reflect present-day climate, hydrological and geopolitical realities.

The Indus Waters Treaty, negotiated in the 1960s before the emergence of modern climate science, no longer accounts for these transformations. Indeed, most water treaties in the region remain rooted in technocratic, engineering-centric frameworks which fail to address extreme climate variability and its cascading impacts.

The upcoming expiration of the Ganges Water Treaty, and the pending negotiation of other basin agreements, present a critical opportunity to rethink water governance in South Asia.

Though the Indus flows through India before Pakistan, in other basins, India is downstream. This is the case with the Brahmaputra, where it demands upstream cooperation from China.

Undermining the Indus treaty could weaken India’s own position in future negotiations and strain its relations with Nepal and Bangladesh, while giving China more influence in South Asian hydro-politics. China is already expanding its footprint by offering billions in loans to Bangladesh and strengthening ties with Nepal, particularly around water infrastructure.

Weaponising water is a perilous strategy that may backfire. The weakening of water diplomacy in South Asia is not just a regional threat; it endangers global climate security.

In the face of escalating climate change impacts and recurring disasters, updating transboundary agreements like the Indus Waters Treaty, Ganga Water Treaty, and Kosi and Teesta accords is no longer optional – it is an urgent necessity with enormous consequences.

Mehebub Sahana, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Geography, The University of Manchester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

China recently approved the construction of the world’s largest hydropower dam, across the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet. When fully up and running, it will be the world’s largest power plant – by some distance.

Yet many are worried the dam will displace local people and cause huge environmental disruption. This is particularly the case in the downstream nations of India and Bangladesh, where that same river is known as the Brahmaputra.

The proposed dam highlights some of the geopolitical issues raised by rivers that cross international borders. Who owns the river itself, and who has the right to use its water? Do countries have obligations not to pollute shared rivers, or to keep their shipping lanes open? And when a drop of rain falls on a mountain, do farmers in a different country thousands of miles downstream have a claim to use it? Ultimately, we still don’t know enough about these questions of river rights and ownership to settle disputes easily.

The Yarlung Tsangpo begins on the Tibetan Plateau, in a region sometimes referred to as the world’s third pole as its glaciers contain the largest stores of ice outside of the Arctic and Antarctica. A series of huge rivers tumble down from the plateau and spread across south and south-east Asia. Well over a billion people depend on them, from Pakistan to Vietnam.

Yet the region is already under immense stress as global warming melts glaciers and changes rainfall patterns. Reduced water flow in the dry season, coupled with sudden releases of water during monsoons, could intensify both water scarcity and flooding, endangering millions in India and Bangladesh.

The construction of large dams in the Himalayas has historically disrupted river flows, displaced people, destroyed fragile ecosystems and increased risks of floods. The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Dam will likely be no exception.

The dam will sit along the tectonic boundary where the Indian and Eurasian plates converge to form the Himalayas. This makes the region particularly vulnerable to earthquakes, landslides, and sudden floods when natural dams burst.

Downstream, the Brahmaputra is one of south Asia’s mightiest rivers and has been integral to human civilisation for thousands of years. It’s one of the world’s most sediment-rich rivers, which helps form a huge and fertile delta.

Yet a dam of this scale would trap massive amounts of sediment upstream, disrupting its flow downstream. This could make farming less productive, threatening food security in one of the world’s most densely populated regions.

The Sundarbans mangrove forest, a Unesco World Heritage Site that stretches across most of coastal Bangladesh and a portion of India, is particularly vulnerable. Any disruption to the balance of sediment could accelerate coastal erosion and make the already low lying area more vulnerable to sea-level rise.

The Brahmaputra eventually flows into a region of fertile fields and mangrove forests. Sk Hasan Ali / shutterstock

Unfortunately, despite the transboundary nature of the Brahmaputra, there is no comprehensive treaty governing it. This lack of formal agreements complicates efforts to ensure China, India and Bangladesh share the water equitably and work together to prepare for disasters.

These sorts of agreements are perfectly possible: 14 countries plus the European Union are parties to a convention on protecting the Danube, for instance. But the Brahmaputra is not alone. Many transboundary rivers in the global south face similar neglect and inadequate research.

Researching rivers

In our recent study, colleagues and I analysed 4,713 case studies across 286 transboundary river basins. We wanted to assess how much academic research there was on each, what themes it focused on, and how that varied depending on the type of river. We found that, while large rivers in the global north receive considerable academic attention, many equally important rivers in the global south remain overlooked.

What research there is in the global south is predominantly led by institutions from the global north. This dynamic influences research themes and locations, often sidelining the most pressing local issues. We found that research in the global north tends to focus on technical aspects of river management and governance, whereas studies in the global south primarily examine conflicts and resource competition.

In Asia, research is concentrated on large, geopolitically significant basins like the Mekong and Indus. Smaller rivers where water crises are most acute are often neglected. Something similar is happening in Africa, where studies focus on climate change and water-sharing disputes, yet a lack of infrastructure limits broader research efforts.

Small and medium-sized river basins, critical to millions of people in the global south, are among the most neglected in research. This oversight has serious real-world consequences. We still don’t know enough about water scarcity, pollution, and climate change impacts in these regions, which makes it harder to develop effective governance and threatens the livelihoods of everyone who depends on these rivers.

A more inclusive approach to research will ensure the sustainable management of transboundary rivers, safeguarding these vital resources for future generations.

Mehebub Sahana, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Geography, The University of Manchester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For years, nature has been blamed as a blocker of economic growth. After some ministerial bluster about not letting newts and bats get in the way of growth ambitions, the UK government released more details of its plans to get Britain building again.

The centrepiece of its aspirations to balance both nature and economic growth is a nature restoration fund, to be set up in England through changes to habitat regulations. This should allow developers to stay within their legal obligations towards nature through a payment scheme without delaying their projects.

The broad concept is that, as an alternative to relocating important species or improving habitats on the site of a proposed development, a developer could pay into the nature restoration fund. This would pay for larger, more strategically located schemes to protect the species in question.

The fund simplifies and streamlines the regulations while collecting funds to promote more, bigger, better and increasingly joined-up sites for nature.

Protecting nature is not just about bats and newts. According to trade association the Home Builders Federation (HBF), there are 160,000 homes being delayed by what are known as “nutrient neutrality” measures. These rules were a response to growing public concerns about land and water pollution caused by nutrient loads – pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus – associated with livestock farming and spillages from sewage works.

Government agency Natural England advised 74 local authorities that they should not allow any more house building in their areas unless this pollution could be mitigated. But this has led to lengthy and expensive project-by-project reviews to identify potential damage.

How will a fund help?

The fund will build on some schemes that are already known to work. One such scheme works for the protection of great-crested newts. Another successful scheme is Thames Basin Heaths project, working to protect and enhance heathland sites where rare birds such as nightingales breed. Crucially, this scheme allows new development to go ahead in adjacent areas.

The fund will be run by Natural England, which aims to draw on these experiences to unblock development at a large scale rather than at single-site level, pooling contributions from developers to pay for mitigation measures when there is a risk to nature.

If a particular “blocking” issue is identified, experts from Natural England will produce a plan, which must be approved by the environment secretary. A levy on developers will then pay for mitigation measures “in perpetuity” (often 30 years), allowing the development to get under way.

Environmental experts have cautiously welcomed the general principles and approach of the nature restoration fund. But there has also been concern about whether the plan is well enough thought through. There are also questions on how well it will integrate with other schemes.

A widespread worry is for the future of biodiversity net gain – which includes measures for creating and improving habitat banks using biodiversity units, effectively a form of “nature market”. This approach sets a target of 10% for biodiversity improvement based upon the combined distinctness, condition and significance of affected habitats over the lifetime of the development. But these measures are only just getting started.

The concern is that providers of sites for these habitat banks – which might be councils, landowners, charities or private businesses, for example – might get cold feet and pull out if they can’t be certain that their plans will be compatible with the nature restoration fund.

There is concern, too, about how payments from the nature restoration fund would be calculated. These will need to be locally appropriate and not pit nature restoration and biodiversity net gain against each other if, for example, landowners are forced to choose a particular scheme for their land that they are then committed to for decades. With two parallel systems in play, the relationship between them must be crystal clear, otherwise shared goals could be missed.

Another question is whether Natural England can be both regulator and financial beneficiary of the new scheme. There have been calls from some of those already involved in nature markets for some form of independent oversight.

And it will also be vital that the new scheme respects what’s known as the “mitigation hierarchy”. This hierarchy aims to avoid, reduce and then mitigate any impacts on nature on-site in that order. Then developers should consider off-site measures in areas where there could be greater gains for biodiversity.

But a danger here is that this could disconnect people from nature even further by mitigating ecological loss miles away from the site of the damage. This disconnection is considered to be a critical underlying cause of biodiversity loss.

There is much to like about the nature restoration fund, but there is a risk that little will be achieved without the government showing genuine ambition and allocating enough money and staff to properly monitor and enforce it over the long term. Only time will tell whether it achieves the government’s goal of speeding up development.

At the moment, it is not clear how the fund will complement similar schemes and there is a danger of creating a complex patchwork in nature restoration funding. But if it works well, it could provide a richer funding ecosystem for nature recovery – a much-needed boost for England’s nature-depleted landscape.

Graham Haughton, Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning and Ian Thornhill, Senior Lecturer in Planning and Environmental Management
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The findings, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology,  show that these powerful flows could be capable of traveling at speeds of up to eight meters per second, carrying plastic waste from the continental shelf to depths of more than 3,200 meters.

Over 10 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the oceans each year. While striking images of floating debris have driven efforts to curb pollution, this visible waste accounts for less than 1% of the total. The missing 99% – primarily made up of fibres from textiles and clothing – is instead sinking into the deep ocean.

Scientists have long suspected that turbidity currents play a major role in distributing microplastics across the seafloor – The University of Manchester were among the first to demonstrate this through their research on ‘Microplastic Hotspots’ in the Tyrrhenian Sea, published in the journal Science. However, until now, the actual process had not been observed or recorded in a real-world setting.

The latest study conducted by The University of Manchester, the National Oceanography Centre (UK), the University of Leeds (UK), and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research provides the first field evidence showing the process.

The findings pose a significant threat to marine ecosystems and highlight the urgent need for stronger pollution controls.

Dr Peng Chen, lead author on the study at The University of Manchester, said “Microplastics on their own can be toxic to deep-sea life, but they also act as ‘carriers’ transferring other harmful pollutants such as PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ and heavy metals, which makes them an environmental ‘multistressor’ which can affect the entire food chain.”

The research focused on Whittard Canyon in the Celtic Sea, a land-detached canyon over 300 km from the shore. By combining in-situ monitoring and direct seabed sampling, the team were able to witness a turbidity current in action, moving a huge plume of sediment at over 2.5 metres per second at over 1.5 km water depth. The samples directly from the flow revealed that these powerful currents were not only carrying just sand and mud, but a significant quantity of microplastic fragments and microfibres.

Further analysis found that the microplastics on the seafloor are mainly comprised of fibres from textiles and clothing, which are not effectively filtered out in domestic wastewater treatment plants and easily enter rivers and oceans.

Dr Ian Kane, Geologist and Environmental Scientist at The University of Manchester, who designed and led the research, said: “These turbidity currents carry the nutrients and oxygen that are vital to sustain deep-sea life, so it is shocking that the same currents are also carrying these tiny plastic particles.

“These biodiversity hotspots are now co-located with microplastic hotspots, which could pose serious risks to deep-sea organisms.

“We hope this new understanding will support mitigations strategies going forward.”

Dr Mike Clare of the National Oceanography Centre, who was a co-lead on the research, added: “Our study has shown how detailed studies of seafloor currents can help us to connect microplastic transport pathways in the deep-sea and find the ‘missing’ microplastics. The results highlight the need for policy interventions to limit the future flow of plastics into natural environments and minimise impacts on ocean ecosystems.”

The study team are now focussing on efforts to better understand the effect that microplastics have on marine organisms, for example sea turtles and deep-sea fauna.

This research was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Full title: Direct evidence that microplastics are transported to the deep sea by turbidity currents

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c12007 [doi.org]

The scientists also found slightly less, but still significant levels of microplastics in other organs of both male and female turtles, including the heart, kidney, liver and spleen, as well as skeletal muscle, subcutaneous fat, stomach and intestines.

They studied the bodies of 10 stranded loggerhead sea turtles, recovered by the Oceanogràfic Foundation of Valencia, that suffered drowning and exhaustion when they were accidently caught up in commercial fishing nets. 

The findings, published in the journal Marine Environmental Research, could spell disaster for the majestic creatures already found in declining numbers in the world’s oceans.

It is the first study to show that microplastics from the gut can translocate in sea turtles, opening up the possibility of different organs  especially the reproductive system -  being directly affected.

The scientists believe microplastics may also lead to systemic inflammation  in the animals.

The largest median particle size  of around 25 microns was found in the intestines and fat, and the smallest median particle size  - of around 15 microns was found in the stomach and reproductive organs.

Lead author Leah Costello, a PhD researcher from The University of Manchester was funded under a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Doctoral Training Studentship. 

She said: “Microplastics are a pervasive marine environmental pollutant, on a par with other global threats such as climate change and ozone depletion. 

“Our study is the first to show direct evidence of the presence of microplastics in the reproductive and other organs of loggerhead sea turtles.

“Sea turtles already face many pressures from human activity and although we have been aware that they ingest plastic throughout their range, the finding of microplastics in almost every tissue sample was quite shocking.

“These findings show that even seemingly healthy individuals could be under physiological stress, impacting the reproductive success of vulnerable and recovering populations.”

Foreign microparticles were identified in 98.8% of all samples, of which around 70% were  microplastics. 

Analysis revealed that polypropylene, polyester fibres, and polyethylene were the most common microparticle types. 

Polypropylene is used in include food packaging, clothing, bottle caps, ropes, personal care products, fishing gear and twine. 

Loggerhead turtles are regularly reported to ingest plastic bags  - made from polyethylene -  who misidentify them as  jellyfish and algae. 

Polyester is another dominant microfiber releasing large numbers of microfibres into the oceans and seas. 

And further analysis provided direct visualisation of cotton microfibres embedded in loggerhead heart tissue.

 Three million tonnes of primary microplastics are released into environment every year, with a further 5.3 million tonnes of larger plastic items that can degrade into secondary microplastics over time.

Because plastics can remain in the gut for up to four months in sea turtles, the scientists speculate that microplastics can cross biological barriers from the gut to organs via the circulatory system contributing to a suite of adverse biological effects.

Co-author Professor Holly Shiels from the University of Manchester  added: “Microplastic accumulation is likely to be associated with organ damage and toxicity in these incredible marine reptiles that can live for 70 years.

“Of particular concern is the impact on reproduction, with implications on growth, development and viability of offspring which could spell trouble for the stability of these already vulnerable sea turtle populations. 

“However, further studies are required to more broadly assess the biological and health impacts of microplastic on sea turtle reproduction.”

• Images: fibre lodged in sea turtle heart; microplastics found in the turtles; drawing of sea turtle by Eve Boswell 
• Microplastics accumulate in all major organs of the Mediterranean loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) is published in Marine Environmental Research  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107100

The UK government has published its planning and infrastructure bill, a cornerstone of its strategy for growth. The bill aims to “get Britain building again and deliver economic growth” and includes the hugely ambitious target of building 1.5 million homes in England over this parliament.

The bill is ambitious in scope – 160 pages long and very technical. But what does it promise exactly?

On infrastructure, it outlines reforms to limit vexatious repeat use of judicial review to block development. There are also some measures for a stronger electricity grid to ease the move towards renewable energy. While the plan to reward people living near new pylons with £250 off their bills grabbed headlines, just as important are measures for energy storage to level out peaks in demand and supply.

On the planning side, planning departments will be allowed to charge more to those making applications. This should speed up decisions by funding more planning officer roles. But there are no measures to increase funding for drawing up local plans. This is important because councils often fall behind schedule in producing these. And where there is no up-to-date plan, there is a danger that developers will push through controversial proposals.

The bill also provides for more decisions to be delegated to planning officials rather than planning committees – this means council staff rather than elected representatives. This already happens for smaller planning applications, so is not entirely new. But it does raise concerns about democratic scrutiny.

The government argues that local democracy will not be undermined, as planning officers will be making their decisions in the context of democratically approved local plans as well as national legislation. But this could be misleading, unless planning authorities have the funds to update local plans regularly.

There are also changes to existing development corporation legislation, to support the building of new towns. Particularly welcome is the responsibility on development corporations – government organisations dealing with urban development – to consider climate change and design quality. This is in order to hit net-zero targets and avoid cookie-cutter housing estates.

Other measures are aimed at ensuring appropriate infrastructure is built to serve these new towns.

There are changes planned too on when compulsory purchase orders can be used to buy sites that are broadly to be used for the public good. This could be for affordable homes, health or education facilities, for instance. It would work by reducing payments to the actual value of the land rather than its “hope value” (when landholders hold out for price rises once planning permission is granted).

There is also a commitment to creating a nature restoration fund, which the government hopes will overcome some of the delays to approving new housing caused by potential threats to wildlife.

The fund will aim to unblock development in general rather than specific sites, as happens at the moment, and will pool contributions from developers to fund nature recovery. Where there are concerns for wildlife, experts will develop a long-term mitigation plan that will be paid for by the fund while allowing the development to go ahead in the meantime.

Will it work?

As a professor of urban and environmental planning, the question for me is will the bill encourage development to progress more speedily? Almost certainly – probably mostly in terms of bringing forward improvements to critical national infrastructure schemes such as the electric grid. For residential development, some incremental speeding up is likely as developers crave certainty in planning decisions.

But on their own, these measures are unlikely to be enough to provide the 1.5 million new homes set out in the government’s target. They offer nothing to tackle critical bottlenecks in terms of both labour and materials. It is also difficult to see the target being met without much more government involvement – by building social housing in particular.

Will the bill result in better quality development? There is surprisingly little in the plans about improving design quality, other than in development corporation areas. This is disappointing, and a missed opportunity to ensure that developers raise their game in residential building and neighbourhood quality.

And might it override local democracy? Arguably yes, but in practice not as much as some critics might argue. Most of the reforms are finessing existing practices, such as delegated powers to planning officers. Much depends on what the national government guidance turns out to be.

The biggest concern is that it might increase invisible political pressures on planning officers by councillors and senior officials. It would have been good to have seen more measures to protect their independence and professional judgement.

Hopefully the bill will speed up delivery of nationally important schemes for critical infrastructure. This means things like modernising the electricity grid and removing repeated use of judicial review to block a development. These elements should create jobs sooner and support economic growth.

Where the bill will make absolutely no difference is in improving living standards for people with older homes. This bill is focused on new builds and has little to offer those hoping for support in retrofitting ageing housing stock with more energy-efficient features or creating green spaces in areas where new development is increasingly in demand.

Despite some of the ministerial bluster about removing red tape, much of the content of this bill is not about removing planning regulations. It is much more about improving them. Some measures will work better than others, but overall, given the government’s electoral mandate to deliver growth and protect the environment, this is a reasonable balancing act.

It’s unlikely to deliver much growth in its own right, but as an enabler of growth, it is promising. More worrying is whether it will lead to poor-quality housing built at pace and massive scale to inadequate energy-efficiency and design standards. This would fail to deliver on net-zero and biodiversity ambitions. It is very much a minor win for facilitating growth, but for nature it is nothing more than maintaining the status quo.

Graham Haughton, Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning, The University of Manchester
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The River Rescue Kit is designed to support individuals and grassroots organisations in holding polluters and policymakers accountable. It offers guidance on gathering water quality data, lobbying decision-makers and raising public awareness.

Professor Woodward highlights the impact of groups like Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP), whose campaigning efforts have brought national attention to the issue and helped shift public and political discourse. “Community activism works,” he said. “We need more people to step up, challenge the status quo, and demand urgent action to clean up our rivers.”

River Action and Professor Woodward urge the public to engage with the River Rescue Kit and join the fight against river pollution. By equipping communities with specialist knowledge and tools, this initiative aims to drive meaningful change and restore the UK’s rivers to health.

For more information and to access the River Rescue Kit, visit kit.riveractionuk.com/river-rescue-kit. 

For more information about the centre, please visit https://www.sci.manchester.ac.uk/research/projects/joined-up-sustainability-transformations/ 

The new project, POUNDS (Prediction Of UnqualifieD losseS from offshore wind farm wakes), aims to provide a national-scale assessment of interactions between wind farms, supporting policymakers and industry leaders to optimise offshore wind energy production in the drive to net zero.

The UK government has set a target to reach 43-50 GW of offshore wind by 2030. Rapid progress has already been made with 16 GW now in operation and further projects are ongoing development under the recent Contract for Difference Allocations. Nevertheless, achieving the 2030 target requires an up to three-fold increase of capacity, potentially reaching over 100 GW installed capacity by 2050. 

Such substantial expansion of offshore wind farms means they must be built closer together, making it crucial to understand how this affects predictions of annual energy production.

When large groups of turbines are built in close proximity, they create ‘wakes’ where wind slows down behind them. Wakes have been observed extending 65 km and are increasingly impacting the performance of neighbouring farms, reducing the efficiency of the turbines in producing energy and causing conflicts between wind farm operators.

Project Lead Dr Pablo Ouro, Research Fellow in the Department of Civil Engineering and Management at The University of Manchester, said: “Achieving the target of 43-50 GW of deployed offshore wind farms by 2030 is crucial for NetZero and energy security, but reduction in energy prediction due to wind farm wakes must be addressed.”

“Our POUNDS project is key to overcoming these challenges, informing policy makers and project developers about strategies to better quantify these losses. Similar initiatives of national importance have been developed in Germany, The Netherlands and the US, and our project aims to support the whole UK offshore wind industry.”

POUNDS, funded by Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) Supergen Offshore Renewable Energy Impact Hub, will be carried out in partnership with the UK’s leading Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) institutes, industry experts, and policymakers, including ORE Catapult, Arup, EDF, RWE, and The Crown Estate.

The project’s key aims include:

• Assessing how offshore wind farms affect each other’s energy production, and the revenue implications of these impacts.
• Helping to identify the best locations for future offshore wind farms to minimise these losses and ensure the UK’s renewable energy targets are met.
• Validating modelled performance data against operational data.
• Improving model accuracy in forecasting wind farm energy production.

As for its methodology, POUNDS will use state-of-the-art mesoscale models – a type of advanced numerical weather forecasting model – to model the performance of wind farms spanning UK waters at a resolution of 1 km. It will assess both the wind farms operational in 2023, and the thousands more wind turbines that are planned by 2030.

The analysis will evaluate accuracy of the model relative to real-world data and quantify the effects of inter-farm wakes on predicted energy yield. It will also capture wind-farm wakes and wind-farm performance in comparison to energy export grid data.

This combination of advanced modelling and collaboration with leading stakeholders is designed to support delivery of the UK’s target to become NetZero by 2050.

Ken Kasriel, Energy Economist with Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, said: "The UK Government's recent Clean Power 2030 Action Plan's  identification of inter-farm wind wakes as an area of focus highlights this issue's importance. This study could make important contributions towards better understanding and planning around them."

Dr Steven Downie, Wind Skills Leader, UKIMEA, Arup, added: "As the UK continues to expand its offshore wind capacity, balancing the need for security and affordability of supply is becoming increasingly complex. To ensure a just transition, which balances private and public interests, it is critical that we take a collaborative approach to advance our scientific understanding of inter-farm wakes and our ability to quantify the impacts."

By modelling the interactions between wind farms more precisely, the team hopes to provide better guidance for developers and policymakers, reduce investment risks, and resolve conflicts between wind farm operators.

POUNDS could ensure that both the UK’s offshore wind expansion, and 2030 target, remain on track.

The project POUNDS will be officially launched at the 8^th EPSRC ORE Impact Hub Annual Assembly, which will be held at The University of Manchester on 15th April 2025 and is open to academic colleagues.

Further information on the Supergen ORE Impact hub is available here.

Our research is at the forefront of the energy transition. Guided by our innovative spirit and interdisciplinary outlook, we work to mitigate climate change while transforming our energy system, to enable a just and prosperous future for all. Find out more about our energy research. 

The station, part of the UK’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Measurement and Modelling Advancement (GEMMA) programme, will monitor and provide crucial data on key climate-relevant gases, including carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O). A new high-precision analyser for monitoring atmospheric hydrogen (H₂) is also being deployed at the site to monitor atmospheric hydrogen (H₂) generated through the growth of the UK’s hydrogen economy.   

The project is a collaboration between The University of Manchester’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Atmospheric Chemistry Research Group at the University of Bristol.

Simon O’Doherty, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Bristol, added: “We can only understand the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by making continuous high-quality, physical measurements of the atmosphere. The current UK network of monitoring stations set up in 2012 has been a huge success in furthering our understanding, however, the addition of the Jodrell Bank station to the network will enhance our ability to determine emissions in the north-west region of the UK.” 

Data collected from Jodrell Bank will be added to a long-term dataset collected by the UK’s Deriving Emissions linked to Climate Change (DECC) network. These measurements are combined with a computer model that represents the transport of gases from the emission sources to the measurement locations. This enables scientists to estimate the size and location of emissions for each measured gas. The total UK emissions estimated for CH₄ and N₂O using this method are included in the UK’s National Inventory Report that is submitted annually to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

As the first site in North West England, the new Jodrell Bank station will provide more granular detail on emissions from Wales and North West England. This will help to improve the accuracy of UK emission estimates and will also permit new studies focused on regional greenhouse gas emissions. Jodrell Bank is also well placed to monitor changes in atmospheric H₂) resulting from planned industrial developments near Ellesmere Port. 

Alistair Manning, Met Office greenhouse gas monitoring Scientific Manager, said: “Jodrell Bank is ideally located to monitor emissions from north Wales and the north-west of England. It complements the existing network perfectly and will enable a better spatial understanding of the emissions of greenhouse gases from these regions. The resulting information will enable the UK to better understand its current emissions and monitor its progress to net zero.” 

The GEMMA Programme is a consortium led by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), which includes the Met Office, National Centre for Earth Observation, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Bristol, University of Manchester, and others working together to create a single integrated network to monitor all sources and sinks of greenhouse gases in the UK, funded by NERC and the Building a Green Future Programme. 

Richard Barker, Head of Environment, NPL, said: “With the welcome addition of Jodrell Bank, we can start to provide greater resolution of UK emissions now and also assure the UK network is better suited to the future, more challenging, demands of achieving net zero.”

The researchers stress the importance of combining global efforts to reduce emissions with localised strategies to adapt land management practices and safeguard ecosystems.

The University of Derby’s Dr Kirsten Lees, who is also co-author of the report, added: “Peatland resilience is an important area of research, as these ecosystems store vast amounts of carbon alongside providing a range of other services. Restoration of areas which are in poor condition is key to protecting these carbon stores. Our research shows that future changes in climate are a vital consideration when planning restoration projects, to ensure that work is targeted towards areas where peatlands can thrive.” 

The study argues that these tactics distract from the urgent need to upgrade ageing infrastructure, much of which was built in the 20th century. The companies - 70 per cent of which are owned by foreign investors - have reportedly distributed £76 billion to shareholders since privatisation in 1989, while building up over £56 billion in debt and neglecting vital upgrades.

“These companies have adopted a playbook of denial, deflection, and distraction, similar to other major polluting industries, to protect profits at the expense of the environment and public health” added Professor Alex Ford from the University of Portsmouth. 

The paper calls for stricter regulation of industry communications to combat greenwashing and misinformation, and urges policymakers to prioritise transparency to safeguard water security in the face of climate change. The authors also highlight the need for greater investment in sustainable solutions, such as restoring wetlands, alongside modernising sewerage systems. 

“The financial exploitation of water resources in England raises globally important issues around water security and environmental stewardship,” added Professor Woodward. “There needs to be much more careful scrutiny of water company communications and of the organisations and individuals responsible for environmental management.”

The paper, Water industry strategies to manufacture doubt and deflect blame for sewage pollution in England, is published in Nature Water: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00370-y

The Bezos Earth Fund - established by Amazon’s founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos in 2020 - is dedicated to supporting efforts that combat climate change and protect nature. With a $10 billion commitment, the fund seeks to drive innovative solutions, catalyse new technologies and promote systemic change to preserve the planet for future generations.

The Bezos Earth Fund announced the $1m Ideation Prize to Accelerate Greenhouse Gas Removal Technology in January 2024, as part of the Fund’s broader Greenhouse Gas Removal initiative. The Prize, as managed by the Experiment Foundation, received more than 700 submissions from around the world. The University of Manchester's project ‘Peatland Restoration: Optimizing Sphagnum Moss for Enhanced Carbon Sequestration and Methane Reduction’ was chosen as one of the 13 winning proposals.

For more information, please visit the Experiment Foundation's website.

GDI’s team will build on a sustained and world-leading record of environment and development research within the Institute. Most notably, the ongoing Sustainable Forest Transitions project that is exploring the effects of reforestation drivers on both forests and rural poverty, while the recently launched Just Earth Observation for Conservation project is interrogating the social risks and benefits of increased use of data in conservation. Members of these project teams have already published impactful research, including a recent Nature Ecology and Evolution paper assessing the ecological and social impacts of Indigenous territories in Brazil.

Taking place over 3.5 years, the observatory team will combine large-scale geospatial and socioeconomic analyses with in-depth qualitative case studies in Mexico, Brazil and Ghana. A separate stream of work will aim to identify evidence gaps, expanding the thematic and geographical remit of the observatory to regions such as Indonesia or South Africa.

The award will also support Ghana-based researchers exploring the relationship between political settlements and the Just Energy Transition in Africa. Project lead Dr Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Ghana Business School and Honorary Research Fellow at GDI, explains: “The observatory represents a significant opportunity to develop our understanding the contested forests of Ghana, while strengthening ties between GDI and the University of Ghana. Bringing together big data, which will highlight changes in forest cover, land rights and socioeconomic indicators, together with an in-depth political economy analysis of what is driving these changes will help us to identify and champion approaches that benefit both people and the environment.”

Read more about research covering resources, environment and development within GDI.

As extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts, floods, and freezes become more common due to global heating, understanding how soil microbes – critical for healthy ecosystems – respond is crucial.

These microbes play a key role in natural processes like carbon cycling, which helps determine how much carbon is stored in the soil and how much is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a major driver of global heating.

Researchers from The University of Manchester, working with a network of scientists across Europe, collected soil samples from 30 grasslands in 10 countries. They experimentally exposed the samples to simulated extreme weather events under controlled laboratory conditions to find out how the microbes would respond.

The team found that microbial communities in soils from different parts of Europe each reacted in unique ways to the extreme events. For example, soils from cooler, wetter climates were particularly vulnerable to heatwaves and droughts, while soils from dry regions were more affected by floods.

However, the scientists also found encouraging patterns and signs of consistency. In particular, microbes that can "pause" their activity and go dormant—essentially waiting out tough conditions—in any weather condition.

The findings are published today in the journal Nature.

Dr Chris Knight, Senior Lecturer in Earth and Environment Sciences at The University of Manchester, said: “Soil microbes are vital for our ecosystems. Their ability to adapt or struggle with climate change has a direct impact on soil health, plant growth, food production and carbon storage.

“By understanding the microbes’ ‘survival strategy’, we can better predict and possibly mitigate future impacts of these extreme weather events, giving us crucial insights to safeguard vulnerable regions.

“But our research highlights just how complex and varied the effects of climate change can be. The fact that local conditions play such a huge role in how vulnerable soils are means that a "one-size-fits-all" approach won’t work when it comes to protecting soil ecosystems, suggesting tailored strategies will be key.”

Each sample site represents the diversity of biogeographic regions present in Europe: alpine (Austria), subarctic (Sweden), Arctic (Iceland), Atlantic (Oxford and Lancaster, UK), boreal (Estonia), continental (Germany), Mediterranean (Spain and GR, Greece) and steppe climate (Russia).

The research offers a key first step in predicting how microbial communities respond to climate extremes, helping inform conservation efforts and climate policies around the world.

Professor Franciska de Vries, who conducted the research while at The University of Manchester, now a Professor of Earth Surface Science at the University of Amsterdam, added: “This study is one of the largest of its kind. By working across multiple countries and ecosystems, we have been able to provide key insights that could guide future research and environmental management strategies ensuring the health of our ecosystems in the face of increasing climate challenges.”

Launching in February 2025, the JUST Centre will work closely with communities in five regions of the North of England (West Yorkshire, West Cumbria, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Tyneside) while also generating comparative research in other regions of the UK.  It will collaborate with partners across local, regional, and national government, business, and civil society to co-produce joined-up solutions to meet climate goals while improving citizens’ quality of life.  

It will use an innovative mix of data science and participatory methods to research and map existing low-carbon living initiatives and generate evidence about what works where, why, and for whom. This will enable researchers to support better government decision-making and demonstrate to all people and communities the real improvements in quality of life that are possible if we link decarbonisation with regeneration.

The Centre brings together a team of interdisciplinary social scientists at the Universities of Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Lancaster and Newcastle. The Institute for Community Studies at the not-for-profit organisation The Young Foundation is the core partner.

Additional partners are Citizens UK, the Local Government Associations for England and Wales, the Scottish Sustainability Network, the British Chambers of Commerce, the NHS Confederation, the Runnymede Trust and the Institute for Government.

Commenting on the announcement, JUST Centre Director and Principal Investigator, Professor Sherilyn MacGregor said: “To meet the challenge of the climate crisis and the UK’s net zero targets, we need to decarbonise our economy and do so quickly, but without leaving whole regions or communities behind.  ‘Joined-up’ means bridging the gaps between myriad but presently disconnected, evidence-based interventions and policies focused on sustainability and net zero transitions.  

ESRC Executive Chair Stian Westlake said: “Our centres carry out interdisciplinary, cutting-edge research in the social sciences that seeks to change the world for the better. They allow ESRC to make sustained investments in strategically important areas, giving researchers the freedom to research topics in depth.

“The climate crisis is one of the most serious challenges the world faces. To successfully transition to a zero-carbon economy, we need to make sure no one is left behind. The JUST Centre will show us how to include everyone as we transform our country and economy, finding new opportunities and putting power in the hands of local communities.”

Stephen Aldridge, Director, Analysis and Data at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), adds: “Net zero poses both huge economic, social, and other challenges and offers no less huge opportunities for the UK - nationally and sub-nationally. To tackle the challenges and seize the opportunities, policymakers and others need evidence – especially evidence on what works and what works most cost-effectively.  

“The Centre for Joined-Up Sustainability Transformations (JUST) is precisely the institutional innovation we need and one I, my team and my department will work closely with across all policy areas. I look forward immensely to engaging with the Centre.”

Professor Paul Monks FRMetS, FRSC, FInstP, Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said: “Achieving net zero by 2050 requires a wide-reaching transformation of the UK economy and offers an incredible opportunity for jobs, secure energy and growth all across the country. It will improve our health, our quality of life and our overall prosperity. We must support and empower people to participate in the transition. I welcome the establishment of this research centre and its work to ensure a fair, inclusive pathway to net zero.” 

An alarming level of microplastic fragments were found to be present throughout the intertidal mudflat sediments within the Medina Estuary, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).  

Microplastics are particles which measure less than five millimetres, and exist in an array of shapes and forms. They cause pollution by entering natural ecosystems from a variety of sources, including run-off from land-based sources and wastewater discharge from Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs).  

Liberty Turrell, who works as a volunteer for the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, collected mudflat sediment from 16 sample sites during low tides for her BA (Hons) Geography dissertation. Analysis of the mud under laboratory conditions discovered three different microplastic shapes: fibres, fragments and beads. Microfibre was the most frequent occurring microplastic shape (99% of all microplastics were microfibres) occurring at all 16 sites.  

Microplastics pollution occurs in estuarine sediments around the world - however, the results from the Isle of Wight are particularly alarming. For comparison, the median value of microplastic concentrations found in the Medina Estuary exceeds the values of estuaries studied in China and India by more than two-fold. 

Jamie Marsh, director of nature recovery (Wilder Wight, Solent & Seas) at Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust said: “The estuary’s mudflats are of significant ecological importance. They support a diverse variety of wildlife providing habitats and breeding areas for a huge array of species including wading birds, crustacea, invertebrates and fish, all of which thrive within the Medina’s intertidal mudflats.  

“The discovery of the high level of microplastics, and of microfibres in particular, in this precious environment is truly staggering. Microfibres cause a significant risk to wildlife as they can easily bundle together. The entangled fibres form a clump and pose a great threat to marine species as the bundles act in the same way as larger plastic items by blocking feeding passageways in the gastrointestinal tract. This can obstruct the movement of food, disrupt the digestive process and cause eventual death.” 

The study also reveals that wastewater discharge from two CSOs with high annual spill rates is a major source of microplastic release into the aquatic environment, and are likely responsible for the immense quantities of fibres reported throughout the Medina Estuary. Dodnor Lane and Fairlee CSO’s together discharged wastewater into the upper estuary for 2,932 hours in 2023 (over 225 total spill events) according to Event Duration Monitoring datasets published by the Environment Agency.  

Professor of Physical Geography Jamie Woodward said: “Research at the University of Manchester has shown that the microplastic contamination of riverbeds is a clear signal that wastewater treatment is not taking place as it should. Effective treatment can remove up to 95% of the microplastic load in wastewater.  

“Microplastic contamination of the Medina Estuary is a concern because it is an area of ecological importance. The Medina Estuary receives high volumes of untreated wastewater from Southern Water assets and the presence of primary microplastic particles provides a clear link to the wastewater system."

"This research helps to resolve a global critical gap in the current studies of microplastics in estuaries," said report author Liberty Turrell. “Unfortunately, the results are shocking. The severe contamination of estuarine environments affected by wastewater discharge takes place across the world and sadly this includes the Isle of Wight. The results clearly show that the prevalence and abundance of microplastics found in the intertidal mudflat sediments highlights a severe contamination issue of the Medina Estuary.”

According to data published by the Environment Agency (2024), there were 464,056 monitored ‘spill’ events into waterways by water companies in England during 2023, a 54% increase from 2022. The 29,494 spills into waterways in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by Southern Water lasted a total duration of 317,285 hours (Environment Agency, 2024). Spill events are responsible for the release of huge quantities of microplastics into our waterways.