Air pollution as Earth and societies interlinkage: A systematic literature review on emerging themes, conceptualisations, and important gaps

Air pollution is one of the most serious challenges at the interface between the Earth system and societies, linking atmospheric processes, climate dynamics, human health, and social vulnerability. While advances in atmospheric and Earth system sciences have substantially improved the understanding of pollutant sources, transport, and threats, integration of societal dimensions into air pollution research remains uneven and conceptually fragmented. Here, we present a systematic literature review that examines how air pollution as interlinkage between Earth system and societies is conceptualised, operationalised, and addressed across interdisciplinary research. Following the PRISMA framework, we screened 1,297 peer-reviewed publications retrieved from the SCOPUS database using a structured search string spanning Earth system sciences, air pollution, and societal dimensions. A combination of a Large Language Model-assisted abstract screening, topic modelling, and full-text qualitative synthesis resulted in the final references of 104 interdisciplinary studies. We analyse temporal and geographic trends, emergent research themes, conceptual framings, and persistent barriers to integration. The literature is dominated by health impacts and air quality monitoring, while governance, equity, and justice perspectives remain marginal. We identify five main operationalisations of the air pollution as Earth system and societies interlinkage: (1) Emissions-to-exposure pathways, (2) Capacity to adapt to atmospheric load, (3) Monitoring and decision infrastructures, (4) Societal interventions as levers of change, and (5) Institutions, commons, and justice framings. Most studies treat societal systems as external drivers or endpoints, rather than as constitutive elements of coupled Earth and societies dynamics. Across the references, recurring barriers include data and monitoring gaps, methodological and scale mismatches between natural and social sciences, weak institutional coordination, and the limited integration of participatory and justice-oriented approaches. We argue that advancing air pollution research as Earth and societies interlinkages requires moving beyond additive interdisciplinarity toward integrative and interdisciplinary co-produced frameworks that embed e.g., social institutions, power relations, and equity and justice to identify key research needs. Strengthening this integration is critical for developing effective, legitimate and equitable air quality intervention measures towards sustainability within planetary boundaries.