Earth and Environmental Sciences

Abstract The Water-Food-Energy (WFE) nexus has become a central framework for addressing resource sustainability in agriculture, yet its operationalization increasingly relies on composite indices whose methodological foundations remain fragmented. This study presents the first systematic and critical review of the Water-Food-Energy Nexus Index (WFENI) applied in agricultural systems. Following a rigorous PRISMA-guided protocol, we analyzed 21 peer-reviewed studies to examine indicator selection, index construction, weighting schemes, and validation practices. The review reveals a clear methodological evolution from early resource-efficiency metrics toward expanded frameworks that integrate environmental, climate, and emission dimensions. While normalization approaches are largely standardized, substantial divergence exists in weighting and aggregation, marking a gradual shift from equal and expert-based weights toward data-driven and optimization-based methods. However, a critical “robustness gap” persists: the vast majority of studies lack formal sensitivity or uncertainty analysis, raising serious concerns about reliability. This review systematically maps these methodological trends and outlines a strategic agenda for future research, advocating for the institutionalization of robustness testing, dynamic modeling, and expanded system boundaries to enhance the rigor and policy relevance of agricultural sustainability assessments.

Soil serves as a major sink for antibiotics from diverse anthropogenic sources, fueling the proliferation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and endangering public health and ecosystems. Although persulfate-based in situ chemical oxidation (PS-ISCO) offers promise for soil remediation, its efficacy is curtailed by nonselective radical scavenging and limited access to adsorbed antibiotics. Herein, we introduce a sustainable strategy leveraging recovered Enteromorpha waste to fabricate superfine monodisperse biochar-confined zerovalent iron nanocrystals (SM-NCFe0). Nanoconfinement promotes Fe–C hybridization, shifting the d-band center and reducing the work function of SM-NCFe0 to enable ultrafast electron transfer to peroxydisulfate (PDS), elongating its O–O bond and favoring surface-bound singlet oxygen (1O2) over radical pathways. This nonradical mechanism delivers exceptional tetracycline removal from soil (99.6%) with a rate constant (0.15 min–1) 3.2- to 7.5 times higher than that of traditional radical-based systems (e.g., nFe0/PDS, 80.2%). Over 40 days in heterogeneous soil, the SM-NCFe0/PDS system eradicated both dissolved and adsorbed antibiotics almost nearly completely, while significantly reducing the expression of typical ARGs by 48.8–72.2% at substantially lower oxidant doses compared to benchmarks (Fe(II), nFe0, nano-FexOy). By balancing superior catalysis, affordability, and ARGs mitigation, SM-NCFe0 heralds an eco-friendly, cost-effective paradigm for tackling antibiotic-contaminated soils and stemming resistance dissemination.

Anthropogenic noise continues to increase every year. While noise has several negative effects on fish, few studies have addressed noise effects on forage fish – a group of key species in their ecosystems. Pacific sand lance, Ammodytes personatus (PSL), are a key forage fish and food source in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean. Research suggests that PSL in noisy compared to quiet environments are of poorer quality, potentially impacting their marine predators – especially marine birds that rely on them in the spring and summer. However, unlike other forage fish, PSL go dormant for several months during the food-scarce fall and winter to conserve energy and avoid predation. For breeding age fish, this is also the time in which they develop their gonads before spawning. While some aspects of dormancy have been studied (e.g., eating cessation) many gaps remain in our understanding of how other factors (e.g., oxygenation, stress) affect survival and emergence condition. We ask if dormancy in PSL a) buffers (e.g., if suppressed metabolism reduces physiological effects of stress), or b) exacerbates (e.g., increase stress changing the critical threshold necessary to survive dormancy) the effects of anthropogenic noise. To test this, we held fish in different acoustic environments for 10 weeks and measured their quality. We found that energy density didn't change among acoustic environments, but noise affected the weight-length relationship of non-breeding fish but not breeding fish. This suggests that dormancy may partially buffer breeding PSL but non-breeding fish may be susceptible to the effects of anthropogenic noise. • We investigated if anthropogenic noise affects Pacific sand lance during dormancy. • Sand lance energy density was unaffected by noise; weight/length relationships were. • Noise only affected non-breeding sand lance weight/length relationships. • Noise may cause system-level effects, if forage fish are impacted.