Publications

Victoria Flexer, Cornelis van Leeuwen, Kirsi Niinimäki, Shilong Piao, Erica R. Siirila-Woodburn, Lan Wang-Erlandsson. 2025. Reflecting on impactful articles at Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00623-0

Johan Rockström, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Maria A. Martin, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Katherine Richardson. 2024. Planetary Boundaries guide humanity’s future on Earth. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00597-z

Human pressures have pushed the Earth system deep into the Anthropocene, threatening its stability, resilience and functioning. The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework emerged against these threats, setting safe levels to the biophysical systems and processes that, with high likelihood, ensure life-supporting Holocene-like conditions. In this Review, we synthesize PB advancements, detailing its emergence and mainstreaming acro...

Mingzhu Cao, Weiguang Wang, Jia Wei, Giovanni Forzieri, Ingo Fetzer, Lan Wang‐Erlandsson. 2024. Revegetation Impacts on Moisture Recycling and Precipitation Trends in the Chinese Loess Plateau. Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR038199

The Loess Plateau in China has experienced a remarkable greening trend due to vegetation restoration efforts in recent decades. However, the response of precipitation to this greening remains uncertain. In this study, we identified and evaluated the main moisture source regions for precipitation over the Loess Plateau from 1982 to 2019 using a moisture tracking model, the modified WAM‐2layers model, and the conceptual framewor...

Chandrakant Singh, Ruud van der Ent, Ingo Fetzer, Lan Wang-Erlandsson. 2024. Multi-fold increase in rainforest tipping risk beyond 1.5–2 °C warming. Earth System Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1543-2024

Tropical rainforests rely on their root systems to access moisture stored in soil during wet periods for use during dry periods. When this root zone soil moisture is inadequate to sustain a forest ecosystem, they transition to a savanna-like state, losing their native structure and functions. Yet the influence of climate change on ecosystem's root zone soil moisture storage and the impact on rainforest ecosystems remain uncert...

Romi Lotcheris, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Juan Rocha. 2024. Remote sensing-based detection of resilience loss in the terrestrial water cycle. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17019

In the face of Anthropogenic change, ecosystems globally have shown evidence of resilience loss in the past several decades. By governing key processes in terrestrial ecosystems, the hydrological cycle is critical for Earth system stability. A resilient system is able to retain its function and structure in the face of external perturbations. Changes to driving hydrological variables, i.e., precipitation, evaporation, and soil...

Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Patrick Keys, Arie Staal, Jolanda Theeuwen, Nico Wunderling, Stefan Dekker, Agnes Pranindita, Adriaan J. Teuling, Maganizo Kruger Nyasulu, Ingo Fetzer, Rafaela Flach, Michael J. Lathuillière, Simon Fahrländer, Fernando Jaramillo, Line Gordon, Chandrakant Singh, Ruud van der Ent, Jose Andres Posada, Michele-Lee Moore, Mingzhu Cao. 2024. Time to recognize the ecosystem service of vegetation-supplied precipitation in management and governance. EGUsphere. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-19880

Globally, 60% of the evaporation from land returns as precipitation over land and a fifth of annual precipitation over land is directly dependent on the presence of vegetation-supplied moisture. In many regions, particularly in dry seasons, a majority of the precipitation relies on moisture from vegetation and is therefore vulnerable to changes in upwind land use that modify water moisture supply to the atmosphere. The benefit...

Maganizo Kruger Nyasulu, Ingo Fetzer, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Fabian Stenzel, Dieter Gerten, Johan Rockström, Malin Falkenmark. 2024. African rainforest moisture contribution to continental agricultural water consumption. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109867

Precipitation is essential for food production in Sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 80 % of agriculture is rainfed. Although ∼40 % of precipitation in certain regions is recycled moisture from Africa's tropical rainforest, there needs to be more knowledge about how this moisture supports the continent's agriculture. In this study, we quantify all moisture sources for agrarian precipitation (African agricultural precipitatio...

Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, Raf Jansen, Daniel Avila Ortega, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Jonathan F. Donges, Henrik Österblom, Per Olsson, Magnus Nyström, Steve Lade, Thomas Hahn, Carl Folke, Garry Peterson, Anne-Sophie Crepin. 2024. Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-21005

The Anthropocene is characterized by accelerating change and global challenges of increasing complexity and most recently by what some have called a polycrisis. Based on an adaptation of the evolutionary traps concept to a global human context, we explore whether the human trajectory of increasing complexity and influence on the Earth system could become a form of Anthropocene trap for humanity. We identify 14 Anthropocene tra...

Elena De Petrillo, Lan Wang Erlandsson, Marta Tuninetti, Luca Ridolfi, Francesco Laio. 2024. Integrating land-atmosphere interactions in the water footprint indicator. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-22014

The aim of this study is to redefine the green water footprint, which can be used for assessing the resilience and sustainability of green water use for food production addressing feedbacks between upwind land cover changes and downwind changes in precipitation, which can subsequently lead to changes in actual crop evapotranspiration, yields and the relative associated irrigation water demand. Therefore, we define green water...

Chelsea Kaandorp, Juan Rocha, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Cynthia Flores, Andrew Hattle, Henrik Österblom, Carl Folke. 2024. Rethinking the Intertwined Biosphere. EGU. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-18923

Transformations towards sustainable futures can only be achieved with an advanced understanding of how human life is intertwined with the whole biosphere. Systems of people and nature are not separate entities but inherently connected across temporal and spatial scales. There is a dynamic interplay between the biosphere and the broader Earth system. Life in the biosphere has evolved with the basic building blocks of planet Ear...