In South Asia, a region facing rapid economic growth, immense population pressure, and high climate vulnerability, the circular economy (CE) has become a critical imperative for sustainable development. This study provides a comparative overview of the CE landscape across eight South Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The analysis reveals the CE transition is nascent region-wide, though India has advanced its policy landscape through a comprehensive suite of rules and missions and Pakistan is developing a national policy. The primary focus remains on waste management, evidenced by programs like Bhutan’s ‘Zero Waste by 2030’ vision, the Maldives’ Single-Use Plastic Phase-Out Plan, and Sri Lanka’s Clean Sri Lanka Programme. While Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is emerging for plastics and e-waste in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, a significant “policy-practice gap” persists, undermined by weak enforcement and governance fragmented across priority sectors like plastics, food systems, and textiles. Most major CE initiatives are catalyzed by international development partners, with regional programs playing a key role in funding innovation. Finally, while the informal sector is the backbone of material recovery, ensuring a just transition that improves working conditions and secures livelihoods remains a critical challenge. The absence of a cohesive regional framework limits collaboration. Scaling the circular economy in South Asia requires integrated national strategies, prioritizing a just transition for the informal sector, and establishing a regional platform for policy harmonization to create self-sustaining system through multi-sectoral involvement, including the business sector.
Booking for the EIG 2026 Conference in Liverpool is now open: https://www.eigconferences.com/ There will be the usual plenary opening session, including an introduction to the geology of North West England by Professor Peter Burgess, University of Liverpool, and the Ansel Dunham Memorial Lecture by Fiona McEvoy of NWS. This will be followed by parallel sessions, from a variety of geotechnical and quarry design case studies and overviews of professional practice to prospecting, geomorphological quarry restoration, low carbon resources and the water environment. Conference programme can be downloaded here: https://www.eigconferences.com/s/EIG-2026-Liverpool-Programme-May6th.pdf Delegate booking, trade stands and sponsorship opportunities are here: https://www.eigconferences.com/2026-conference NB Delegate Early Bird deadline 30th June 2026.
Abstract Iron (Fe) plays a key role in marine environments as a bio-limiting nutrient and a control on sedimentary burial of carbon and other nutrients. Sensitive glacial systems provide an important delivery mechanism for Fe to the ocean, but it is unknown how these glacial sources will change as ice retreats. Sedimentary records from the Yermak Plateau, proximal to the Svalbard-Barents Ice Sheet provide an opportunity to investigate how past glacial instability may have affected bioavailable iron delivery. Here we find that over the past 135 ka, pulsed reactive Fe export to the Yermak Plateau occurred at least 5 times, during intervals of ice sheet retreat or advance. Fe-rich layers preserve high contents of reactive Fe phases, some of which were likely bioavailable at the time of deposition. Glacial Fe from Svalbard may have been delivered either directly by meltwater plumes or through remobilization of Fe deposited in fjord and shelf sediments. The delivery of reactive Fe hundreds of kilometers offshore during these events indicates that ice sheet instability in modern settings could perturb high latitude nutrient cycles. Acknowledgments The TRANSSIZ cruise (Transitions in the Arctic Seasonal Sea Ice Zone) was initiated and co-organized by the Arctic in Rapid Transition (ART) network. The authors thank the crew of RV Polarstern and chief scientist Ilka Peeken. We would like to thank Andy Connelly and Stephen Reid for analytical support. Funding Materials were collected on the TRANSSIZ cruise, which was funded by PS92; Grant AWI_PS92_00. A. T. discloses funding for this project from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement 709175 and by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 2231935. Author information Authors and Affiliations Department of Earth Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA Allyson Tessin & Rachael Gray School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Allyson Tessin & Christian März Institute for Geosciences, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany Christian März Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany Johan C. Faust & Christoph Vogt Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Philipp Böning & Bernhard Schnetger Department of Geosciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway Matthias Forwick Alfred Wegener Polar Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany Jens Matthiessen PSI Center for Nuclear Engineering and Sciences, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland Anke Neumann Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Matthew O’Regan Faculty of Geosciences, Crystallography & Geomaterials Research, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany Christoph Vogt Authors Allyson Tessin View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Christian März View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Johan C. Faust View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Philipp Böning View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Matthias Forwick View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Rachael Gray View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Jens Matthiessen View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Anke Neumann View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Matthew O’Regan View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Bernhard Schnetger View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Christoph Vogt View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Corresponding author Correspondence to Allyson Tessin. Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary information Supplementary Information (download PDF ) Peer Review file (download PDF ) Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Reprints and permissions About this article Cite this article Tessin, A., März, C., Faust, J.C. et al. Svalbard-barents ice sheet instability enhanced delivery of reactive iron to the ocean. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75133-2 Download citation Received: 25 July 2025 Accepted: 23 June 2026 Published: 01 July 2026 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75133-2 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy shareable link to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Subjects Element cycles Palaeoceanography
Abstract A central challenge in sustainable urban design is quantifying how landscape spatial configuration influences public perception of cultural ecosystem services (CES), particularly in ecologically sensitive high-altitude regions. This exploratory study explored the relationships between landscape configuration and CES perception in Lhasa’s urban parks, adopting text mining of social media comments(n=3319 ), landscape pattern analysis, spatial mapping, and questionnaire validation. Six CES dimensions were identified, with significant variations in service provision across Parks. Statistical correlation analysis suggested that specific landscape metrics were meaningfully related to CES perception: the Largest Patch Index (LPI) exhibited a strong positive linear relationship with recreation perception (R^2=0.713 ), while the Landscape Shape Index (LSI) showed a quadratic trend with aesthetic perception. Spatial analysis revealed distinct spatial patterns for each perceived service. Field surveys supported these exploratory linkages, with mean agreement scores ranging from 3.87 to 4.52 on a 5-point Likert scale. Correlation analysis among CES dimensions revealed negative associations indicative of perceptual interrelationships: Recreation was negatively associated with heritage and culture (r=-0.75 ) and education (r=-0.82 ), while heritage and culture and education were positively associated (r=0.90 ), reflecting synergy. These findings suggest that landscape configuration shapes multidimensional CES perceptions through distinct pathways, forming spatial-functional interactions among perceived services. This study provides exploratory empirical evidence on the impact of landscape configuration on CES perception in high-altitude cities, reveals the interrelationships within perceived service bundles, and offering insights for Park design and management aimed at balancing diverse service needs. Similar content being viewed by others Assessing perception and equity of cultural ecosystem services in urban parks using social media data Article Open access 26 September 2025 Decoding the sensory-behavioral pathway to wellness: a PPGIS-driven mechanistic investigation of multisensory landscape interactions in urban parks Article Open access 26 December 2025 Spatial correlations between cultural ecosystem services and human activities along the Shenyang’s Hun River corridor Article Open access 30 July 2025 Funding This research was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China 2024 (Grant Number 24FYSB022), the Key Research and Development Program of Xizang Autonomous Region (Grant Number XZ202502ZY0070), and the Base and Talent Program of Xizang Autonomous Region (Grant Number XZ202502JD0036). Author information Authors and Affiliations The School of Intelligent Manufacturing, Zhengzhou University of Economics and Business, Zhengzhou, 450012, China Yonghao Shi The School of Ecology and Environment, Xizang University, Lhasa, 850000, China Yonghao Shi & Fuhua An The School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang, 471000, China Junrui Liu Graduate School, Xizang University, Lhasa, 850000, China Dongcai Zhao Authors Yonghao Shi View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Junrui Liu View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Fuhua An View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Dongcai Zhao View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Corresponding author Correspondence to Fuhua An. Ethics declarations Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary Information Supplementary Information 1. (download PDF ) Supplementary Information 2. (download PDF ) Supplementary Information 3. (download PDF ) Supplementary Information 4. (download PDF ) Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Reprints and permissions About this article Cite this article Shi, Y., Liu, J., An, F. et al. Landscape configuration shapes cultural ecosystem service perception and interrelationships in the urban parks of Lhasa. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-59841-9 Download citation Received: 10 March 2026 Accepted: 23 June 2026 Published: 01 July 2026 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-59841-9 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy shareable link to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Keywords Urban parks Landscape pattern Cultural ecosystem services Coupling relationship Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Subjects Environmental social sciences Environmental studies Geography
Abstract Infestation by the Red Turpentine Beetle is one of the key factors threatening the ecological stability of pine forests, while traditional manual inspection methods are inefficient and easily influenced by subjective factors. UAV-based detection methods can significantly improve monitoring efficiency; however, small target scales, blurred details, and complex backgrounds in UAV imagery pose great challenges to detection algorithms. To address these issues, This paper proposes TLK-YOLO, a UAV-based method for detecting pine trees infested by the Red Turpentine Beetle, which integrates a Transformer mechanism with a large-kernel selection strategy. A Local Window Cross-Attention (LWCA) upsampling module is introduced to enhance small-object detail modeling by fusing high- and low-resolution information within local windows. A Dynamic Combined Large Selective Kernel (DCLSK) module adaptively adjusts the receptive field to balance global context and local details, improving small-object feature discriminability and robustness. Furthermore, a redesigned network architecture, TLK-NA, mitigates redundancy in shallow-to-deep feature propagation by reversing the information flow from deep to shallow layers, achieving a better trade-off between detection accuracy and computational efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate that TLK-YOLO exhibits remarkable performance in detecting Red Turpentine Beetle infestations from UAV imagery, achieving an mAP50 of 89.3%. Compared with the baseline model, TLK-YOLO attains comprehensive improvements in both detection precision and recall, with precision increases by 4.4%, recall precision by 9.6%, while mAP50 and mAP50-95 improve by 7.9% and 8.3%, respectively, while maintaining relatively low computational overhead. This network provides an efficient and reliable technical foundation for UAV-based forestry pest and disease monitoring. Acknowledgements We sincerely thank our advisor for their guidance and our colleagues for their support during the research. Funding This work was supported by the Key Project of Yunnan Basic Research Program (NO. 202401AS070034) and the Yunnan Provincial Forestry and Grass Science and Technology Innovation Joint Project (NO. 202404CB090002). Author information Authors and Affiliations The School of Information, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China Manxin Chao, Can Peng, Zaiqing Chen & Lijun Yun Department of Education of Yunnan Province, Engineering Research Center of Computer Vision and Intelligent Control Technology, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China Manxin Chao, Can Peng, Junfeng Peng, Huihua Wang, Zaiqing Chen, Lijun Yun & Xuesong Jin Southwest United Graduate School, Kunming, 650092, Yunnan, China Manxin Chao & Lijun Yun Yuxi Key Laboratory of Mental Health Examination, The Second People’s Hospital of Yuxi, Yuxi, 653100, China Junfeng Peng, Zaiqing Chen, Lijun Yun & Xuesong Jin Authors Manxin Chao View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Can Peng View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Junfeng Peng View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Huihua Wang View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Zaiqing Chen View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Lijun Yun View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Xuesong Jin View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Corresponding authors Correspondence to Lijun Yun or Xuesong Jin. Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Reprints and permissions About this article Cite this article Chao, M., Peng, C., Peng, J. et al. A transformer and large-kernel convolution-based detection model for Red Turpentine Beetle infestation in pine trees. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-59736-9 Download citation Received: 08 December 2025 Accepted: 23 June 2026 Published: 01 July 2026 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-59736-9 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy shareable link to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Keywords YOLO UAV Red Turpentine Beetle Transformer Large-kernel convolution Subjects Computational biology and bioinformatics Ecology Engineering Mathematics and computing
Abstract Black soldier fly (BSF) larvae are increasingly valued as a sustainable source of proteins and essential minerals in animal feed and potentially food, yet their physiological response to substrate iron fortification is poorly defined. Here, integrated transcriptomic, proteomic, and tissue iron detection approaches were used to characterize responses of BSF larvae reared on diets containing 323 (control), 1255, and 6970 mg Fe/kg dry matter (DM). Larval growth at day 12 was unaffected, while prepupal emergence after 15 days showed a statistically non-significant increase at the highest iron level, suggesting only subtle developmental effects. Prussian blue staining showed a dose-dependent iron accumulation in the midgut epithelium, consistent with known insect iron responsive regions of entoferritin-based sequestration. An elevated iron signal in the peritrophic matrix indicated a complementary defensive barrier. Multi-omics profiling revealed oxidative stress responses, suppression of mitochondrial and translational pathways, and activation of exoskeleton biosynthesis. Entoferritin levels rose by ~70% for both protein subunits despite insignificant transcript changes, pointing to a post-transcriptional regulation mechanism. These results suggest a gut-centered “accumulate-and-store” physiological strategy enabling BSF larvae to tolerate high dietary iron. This entoferritin-based high iron accumulation capacity highlights the potential of this insect as a sustainable source of a protein bound iron in feeds. Acknowledgements The authors thank Protix (Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands) for providing the insect eggs essential for this study. Special thanks are extended to Kim, Yifan Zhang, Rutger Brouwer, Caspar van Arkel, Lucas Bozzo, Andrés Mateo, and Xuan Yang for their valuable assistance with larval counting. This work was funded by the TKI Graduate School Green Top sectors [grant number 6153031040, 2022]. Author information Authors and Affiliations Wageningen University and Research, Food Quality and Design Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands Tomer First, Vincenzo Fogliano & Maryia Mishyna Department of Biochemistry, Nutrition, and Health Promotion, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA Hunter K. Walt, Florencia Meyer & Federico G. Hoffmann Proteomics, Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, ISPAAM, National Research Council, Portici, Italy Valentina Ciaravolo, Simona Arena & Andrea Scaloni Department of Physiology, Biophysics and Neuroscience, Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav), Mexico City, Mexico Fanis Missirlis Wageningen University and Research, Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen, The Netherlands Joop J. A. Van Loon Wageningen University and Research, Animal Nutrition Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands Dennis G. A. B. Oonincx Authors Tomer First View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Hunter K. Walt View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Valentina Ciaravolo View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Simona Arena View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Andrea Scaloni View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Fanis Missirlis View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Florencia Meyer View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Federico G. Hoffmann View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Joop J. A. Van Loon View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Dennis G. A. B. Oonincx View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Vincenzo Fogliano View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Maryia Mishyna View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Corresponding author Correspondence to Tomer First. Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary information Supplementary figure (download DOCX ) Supplementary Table S1 (download XLSX ) Supplementary Table S2 (download XLSX ) Supplementary Table S3 Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Reprints and permissions About this article Cite this article First, T., Walt, H.K., Ciaravolo, V. et al. Forged in iron: molecular insights into iron tolerance in Hermetia illucens. npj Sci Food (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-026-00962-w Download citation Received: 20 October 2025 Accepted: 18 June 2026 Published: 01 July 2026 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-026-00962-w Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy shareable link to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Subjects Biochemistry Developmental biology Ecology Molecular biology Physiology Zoology