Vanadium mining activities can cause contamination of the surrounding geological environment. Vanadium may exist in multiple matrices due to its migration and transformation, forming interactive relationships; however, the connection between vanadium distributions in multiple matrices and microbial community responses remains largely unknown. Vanadium is a redox‐sensitive metal that can be microbiologically reduced and immobilized. To date, bioremediation of vanadium‐contaminated environments by indigenous microorganisms has rarely been evaluated. This paper reports a systematic investigation into vanadium distributions and microbial communities in soils, water, and sediment from Panzhihua, China. Large vanadium contents of 1130.1 ± 9.8 mg/kg and 0.13 ± 0.02 mg/L were found in surface soil and groundwater. Vanadium in surface water tended to precipitate. Microbial communities isolated from similar environments were alike due to similarity in matrix chemistry whereas communities were distinct when compared to different matrices, with lower richness and diversity in groundwater. Proteobacteria was distributed widely and dominated microbial communities within groundwater. Redundancy analysis shows that vanadium and nutrients significantly affected metal‐tolerant bacteria. Long‐term cultivation (240 days) suggests the possibility of vanadium bioremediation by indigenous microorganisms, within acid‐soluble fraction. This active fraction can potentially release mobile vanadium with shifted redox conditions. Vanadium (V) was bio‐reduced to less toxic, mobile vanadium (IV) primarily by enriched Bacillus and Thauera. This study reveals the biogeochemical fate of vanadium in regional geological environments and suggests a bioremediation pathway via native vanadium‐reducing microbes.

More than two billion people worldwide have suffered thyroid disorders from either iodine deficiency or excess. By creating the national map of groundwater iodine throughout China, we reveal the spatial responses of diverse health risks to iodine in continental groundwater. Greater non-carcinogenic risks relevant to lower iodine more likely occur in the areas of higher altitude, while those associated with high groundwater iodine are concentrated in the areas suffered from transgressions enhanced by land over-use and intensive anthropogenic overexploitation. The potential roles of groundwater iodine species are also explored: iodide might be associated with subclinical hypothyroidism particularly in higher iodine regions, whereas iodate impacts on thyroid risks in presence of universal salt iodization exhibit high uncertainties in lower iodine regions. This implies that accurate iodine supply depending on spatial heterogeneity and dietary iodine structure optimization are highly needed to mitigate thyroid risks in iodine-deficient and -excess areas globally.

Climate projections are essential for decision-making but contain non-negligible uncertainty. To reduce projection uncertainty over Asia, where half the world’s population resides, we develop emergent constraint relationships between simulated temperature (1970–2014) and precipitation (2015–2100) growth rates using 27 CMIP6 models under four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. Here we show that, with uncertainty successfully narrowed by 12.1–31.0%, constrained future precipitation growth rates are 0.39 ± 0.18 mm year⁻¹ (29.36 mm °C⁻¹, SSP126), 0.70 ± 0.22 mm year⁻¹ (20.03 mm °C⁻¹, SSP245), 1.10 ± 0.33 mm year⁻¹ (17.96 mm °C⁻¹, SSP370) and 1.42 ± 0.35 mm year⁻¹ (17.28 mm °C⁻¹, SSP585), indicating overestimates of 6.0–14.0% by the raw CMIP6 models. Accordingly, future temperature and total evaporation growth rates are also overestimated by 3.4–11.6% and −2.1–13.0%, respectively. The slower warming implies a lower snow cover loss rate by 10.5–40.2%. Overall, we find the projected increase in future water availability is overestimated by CMIP6 over Asia.

Periodic water waves generate Stokes drift as manifest from the orbits of Lagrangian particles not fully closing. Stokes drift can contribute to the transport of floating marine litter, including plastic. Previously, marine litter objects have been considered to be perfect Lagrangian tracers, travelling with the Stokes drift of the waves. However, floating marine litter objects have large ranges of sizes and densities, which potentially result in different rates of transport by waves due to the non-Lagrangian behaviour of the objects. Through a combination of theory and experiments for idealised spherical objects in deep-water waves, we show that different objects are transported at different rates depending on their size and density, and that larger buoyant objects can have increased drift compared with Lagrangian tracers. We show that the mechanism for the increased drift observed in our experiments comprises the variable submergence and the corresponding dynamic buoyancy force components in a direction perpendicular to the local water surface. This leads to an amplification of the drift of these objects compared to the Stokes drift when averaged over the wave cycle. Using an expansion in wave steepness, we derive a closed-form approximation for this increased drift, which can be included in ocean-scale models of marine litter transport.