EGU21-13583
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13583
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Towards a green water planetary boundary

Lan Wang-Erlandsson1, Ruud van der Ent2, Arie Staal3, Miina Porkka4, Arne Tobian1,5, Sofie te Wierik6, Ingo Fetzer1, Chandrakant Singh1, Fernando Jaramillo7, Peter Greve8, Dieter Gerten5, Patrick Keys9, Heindriken Dahlmann1,10, Tom Gleeson11, Will Steffen12, Sarah Cornell1, and Johan Rockström5
Lan Wang-Erlandsson et al.
  • 1Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden (lan.wang@su.se)
  • 2Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands
  • 3Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
  • 4Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
  • 5Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam, Germany
  • 6University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • 7Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 8The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna, Austria
  • 9Colorado State University, Fort Collins, United States
  • 10Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
  • 11University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
  • 12The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Green water - soil moisture, evaporation, and precipitation over land - is fundamental to safeguard Earth system functioning. Nonlinear green-water driven changes in climate, ecosystems, biogeochemistry, and hydrology are becoming increasingly evident and widespread. Yet, considerations of continental to planetary scale green-water dynamics are yet to be assessed and incorporated in management and governance. Here, we propose a green water planetary boundary (PB) - as part of the planetary boundary framework that demarcates a global “safe-operating space” for humanity - for assessing green-water related changes that can affect the capacity of the Earth system to remain in Holocene-like conditions. We consider green-water related processes associated with all scales: spatially distributed units, regions or biomes, and the Earth system as a whole. The proposed green water PB variable is selected through expert elicitation based on a set of transparent evaluation criteria that consider both scientific and governability aspects. Finally, we clarify the appropriate use of a green water PB, outline remaining challenges, and propose a research agenda for future navigation and quantitative assessments of the biophysical Earth system scale boundaries of green water changes.

How to cite: Wang-Erlandsson, L., van der Ent, R., Staal, A., Porkka, M., Tobian, A., te Wierik, S., Fetzer, I., Singh, C., Jaramillo, F., Greve, P., Gerten, D., Keys, P., Dahlmann, H., Gleeson, T., Steffen, W., Cornell, S., and Rockström, J.: Towards a green water planetary boundary, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-13583, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13583, 2021.

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