Results 41 to 50 of 88
Researchers at the University of Leeds and the University of York, in collaboration with partners such as UTM, Malaysia, have been tackling sustainable development challenges associated with oil palm production and consumption from multiple perspectives. This briefing note sets out the major projects and headline findings in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals. Oil palm waste...
A study from University of Leeds researchers, published earlier this year, found significant shifts in the deforestation dynamics of Amazonian forests. The Amazon Basin is home to over 5 million km2 of tropical rainforest, storing up to 200 petagrams of carbon (each petagram = 1 billion tonnes). Changes to this important ecosystem are expected to...
An extensive study from LEAF scientists shows substantially reduced plant productivity across northern regions in the months following a warmer spring. Using 30 years of satellite images, an international team led by the University of Leeds examined 41 million km2 of land in northern regions. They found that the early onset in plant productivity caused...
For decades scientists have tried to find out why forests emit the volatile gases that give pine forests their distinctive smell. A new study led by LEAF scientists at the University of Leeds might help us understand the reasons. Particles in the atmosphere can scatter sunlight, causing light at the Earth’s surface to come from...
The extent of pre-industrial era fires, and the cooling that occurs due to their particulate emissions, may have been significantly underestimated, according to a new study. Fires cause large amounts of tiny particles, known as aerosols, to be released into the atmosphere. These aerosols, such as the soot in smoke or chemicals released by burning...
By John Hodgson, Hardknott Forest Project Officer Restoring Hardknott Forest is a partnership between the University of Leeds and the Forestry Commission. Since January, John has been in post as Project Officer, organising and leading volunteer days, and liaising with the Forestry Commission and the University of Leeds. As anyone who has done some fieldwork,...
By Karen Bacon - University of Leeds; article originally published on The Conversation. Japanese knotweed, a widespread invasive non-native species in the UK, is seldom out of the news and can strike fear into the hearts of anyone who finds it growing on their property, house owner or developer alike. It is a tall, herbaceous...
By Jamie Carr - University of Leeds; article originally published on The Conversation. Countries with high levels of human well-being are more likely to show increasing forest growth. That’s the finding of a new study by a group of Finnish scientists, published in PLOS ONE. Their work shows that countries exhibiting annual increases in the...
By Cat Scott (@catzigle) - University of Leeds Our recent research indicates that deforestation might be warming the climate even more than we thought. How cool are trees? We know that trees and forests affect the climate in a variety of ways. They’re constantly taking carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air and storing it...
An international competition to estimate the diversity of plants across the whole of Britain has shown that mathematical modelling techniques are ‘coming of age’. Models are widely used by scientists to estimate the biological diversity of particular habitats, regions, countries and even continents, and to assess how this might be changing over time. Using models,...