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  • Perspective
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A planetary boundary for green water

Abstract

Green water — terrestrial precipitation, evaporation and soil moisture — is fundamental to Earth system dynamics and is now extensively perturbed by human pressures at continental to planetary scales. However, green water lacks explicit consideration in the existing planetary boundaries framework that demarcates a global safe operating space for humanity. In this Perspective, we propose a green water planetary boundary and estimate its current status. The green water planetary boundary can be represented by the percentage of ice-free land area on which root-zone soil moisture deviates from Holocene variability for any month of the year. Provisional estimates of departures from Holocene-like conditions, alongside evidence of widespread deterioration in Earth system functioning, indicate that the green water planetary boundary is already transgressed. Moving forward, research needs to address and account for the role of root-zone soil moisture for Earth system resilience in view of ecohydrological, hydroclimatic and sociohydrological interactions.

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Fig. 1: The conceptual framework of a green water planetary boundary.
Fig. 2: Green water and associated non-linear relationships.
Fig. 3: Departure from the envelope of baseline variability.
Fig. 4: Balance between green-water-driven stabilizing and amplifying feedbacks.
Fig. 5: Current status and boundary position of the green water planetary boundary.

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Data availability

The LPJmL model outputs and data in Fig. 3 can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6339619. The MPI-ESM1.2-LR data can be downloaded at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip6/.

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Acknowledgements

L.W.-E., A.T., I.F., C.S., J.R. and A.S. acknowledge financial support from the European Research Council through the ‘Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene’ project (no. ERC-2016-ADG 743080). R.J.v.d.E. acknowledges funding from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), project number 016.Veni.181.015. M.P. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 819202).

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L.W.-E. led the writing of the article, produced the visualizations and performed the baseline deviation analyses. A.T. produced Fig. 2a and conducted the LPJmL model runs underlying Fig. 3. L.W.-E., A.T., R.J.v.d.E., I.F., S.t.W., M.P., A.S., F.J., H.D. and J.R. contributed to the writing of the manuscript. L.W.-E., A.T., R.J.v.d.E., I.F., S.t.W., M.P., A.S., F.J., H.D., C.S. and P.W.K. performed the literature review. L.W.-E., A.T., R.J.v.d.E., I.F., M.P., A.S., F.J., H.D., C.S., P.G., D.G. and P.W.K. evaluated the green water variables. L.W.-E., A.T., R.J.v.d.E., I.F., S.t.W., M.P., A.S., F.J., H.D., C.S., P.G., D.G., P.W.K., J.R. and X.B. contributed to the editing and/or reviewing of the manuscript. All authors contributed substantially to the discussion of content. Overall author contributions of A.T., R.J.v.d.E., I.F., S.t.W., M.P., A.S. and F.J. can be considered equal.

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Correspondence to Lan Wang-Erlandsson.

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Nature Reviews Earth & Environment thanks Shilong Piao, Navneet Kumar and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Wang-Erlandsson, L., Tobian, A., van der Ent, R.J. et al. A planetary boundary for green water. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 380–392 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00287-8

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