1,2,3,5,6,1,2- 1Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
- 2Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany
- 3Institute of Physics and Astronomy, Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany
- 4Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany
- 5Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Germany
- 6International Institute for Applied System Analysis, Vienna, Austria
- 7Institute of Mathematics, University Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany
- 8Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy, Potsdam, Germany
Ever since we entered the Anthropocene, (some) humans are not only affected by earth system changes but are the most important determinant of environmental alterations like climate change and the sixth mass extinction. These changes lead to nonlinear interactions and co-evolutionary dynamics that challenge current predominant modeling approaches. Thus, we need models that incorporate true bidirectional interactions between social and environmental processes at a global scale and go beyond economic cost-benefit analyses, often done by integrated assessment modelling approaches. In this study, we aim to provide a systematic overview of studies that already adopt this “World-Earth Modelling” approach.
Using the methods of a systematic review, we collected 21,999 entries from Web of Science and Scopus databases. These entries were screened using a novel approach that employed Large-Language Models to select suitable World-Earth models.
The results of this comprehensive literature review highlight novel developments in the field and identify gaps in this research frontier that should be addressed in future studies. We find that only a few studies capture global two-way interactions between social and environmental processes. Most of these models focus on economic perspectives, leaving socio-cultural dynamics, such as the effects of social norms or learning processes understudied. Furthermore, most of these models address the climate change dimension of planetary boundaries and neglect other environmental aspects. Nevertheless, existing models demonstrate that including bidirectional feedback between social and environmental processes can help explore possible transformation pathways toward a sustainable future, producing more realistic and dynamic scenarios and trajectories. However, integrating human-environmental feedback on a global scale is still in its infancy, and more research is needed to understand the emerging co-evolutionary dynamics in the Anthropocene.
How to cite: Prawitz, H., Schwarz, L., Barfuss, W., Eker, S., Halbe, J., and Donges, J. F.: Towards modelling the Anthropocene: A systematic review of World-Earth models, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13363, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13363, 2026.
