BU Research Blog

Gene editing to eradicate unwanted animal populations, deep water lasers for trawling the sea, radiation threats from next-generation mobile phone networks and how to protect the 44% of the Earth’s surface covered by no-mans-land oceans.

These are among the 15 environmental challenges and trends cited by a diverse group of 24 researchers and experts tasked with identifying the as yet little-understood issues that could have a big impact on our natural world in the coming year.

This was the ninth NERC-funded Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation & Biological Diversity, led by William Sutherland, Professor of Conservation Biology at Cambridge University, and published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

The annual report looks at new developments and threats that authors believe could present risks and opportunities in the coming year. The international team reviewed 117 potential emerging issues, whittling down to the 15 they believe may have the biggest impact – positive or negative – but are the least well-known.

Click here to see what the 15 emerging issues for 2018 were identified as.