Nature Sustainability publishes significant original research from a broad range of natural, social and engineering fields about sustainability, its policy dimensions and possible solutions. Understanding how to ensure the well-being of current and future generations within the limits of the natural world is the overarching goal of sustainability research.

Decades of academic work have helped to shed light on this crucial issue, but only recently in a more open and joined-up way across different research fields. There is now a much stronger call for integrated knowledge about the Earth, social and technological systems and their interfaces, particularly from outside academia as shown by the global Sustainable Development Goals agenda promoted by the United Nations. Against this backdrop, researchers will find even stronger support to develop a deep understanding of those interactions and find answers to questions like:

How extreme are the impacts of human actions on the natural environment and what are their implications for the continuation of life on Earth?
Are there long-term solutions to environmental crises and of what kind?
To what extent are environmental and human crises connected?
Why do social inequalities and human suffering persist across the globe?
How do we measure environmental and human well-being and track progress of policies and interventions to ensure it?
What kinds of behavioural and institutional barrier inhibit the transformations needed to achieve more sustainable lifestyles, economies and societies more broadly?

Disciplines covered in the journal

Agronomy
Anthropology
Atmospheric Science
Biogeochemistry
Business Studies
Civil Engineering
Demography
Development Studies
Ecology
Economics
Education
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Health
Environmental Science
Epidemiology
Ethics
Finance
Forestry
Geography
Hydrology
Humanities
Industrial Ecology
Oceanography
Policy Studies
Political Science
Psychology
Public Policy
Science, Technology and Society
Sociology
Soil Science
Urban Science and Studies
Water Science and studies

Focus on Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture

Feeding a growing and increasingly affluent population is clashing with efforts to conserve habitat and natural resources.
Sustainable intensification, an effort to increase crop yields with fewer inputs and without expanding land use, seeks to balance these priorities.
This Focus brings together research and opinion on this agricultural and societal challenge. The collection also gathers select, relevant articles from other Nature Research journals.