Publications

Wang-Erlandsson, L., Tobian, A., van der Ent, R., Fetzer, I., te Wierik, S., Porkka, M., Staal, A., Jaramillo, F., Dahlmann, H., Singh, C., Greve, P., Gerten, D., Keys, P., Gleeson, T., Cornell, S., Steffen, W., Bai, X., Rockström, J. 2022. A planetary boundary for green water. Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00287-8

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 es...

Singh, C., van der Ent, R., Wang‐Erlandsson, L., Fetzer, I. 2022. Hydroclimatic adaptation critical to the resilience of tropical forests. Global Change Biology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16115

Forest and savanna ecosystems naturally exist as alternative stable states. The maximum capacity of these ecosystems to absorb perturbations without transitioning to the other alternative stable state is referred to as ‘resilience’. Previous studies have determined the resilience of terrestrial ecosystems to hydroclimatic changes predominantly based on space-for-time substitution. This substitution assumes that the contemporar...

Chrysafi, A., Virkki, V., Jalava, M. et al. 2022. Quantifying Earth system interactions for sustainable food production via expert elicitation. Nature Sustainability. https://doi-org.ezproxy.its.uu.se/10.1038/s41893-022-00940-6

Several safe boundaries of critical Earth system processes have already been crossed due to human perturbations; not accounting for their interactions may further narrow the safe operating space for humanity. Using expert knowledge elicitation, we explored interactions among seven variables representing Earth system processes relevant to food production, identifying many interactions little explored in Earth system literature....

Jaramillo, F., Piemontese, L., Berghuijs, W. R., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Greve, P., Wang, Z. 2022. Fewer basins will follow their Budyko curves under global warming and fossil-fueled development. Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR031825

The Budyko framework consists of a curvilinear relationship between the evaporative ratio (i.e., actual evaporation over precipitation) and the aridity index (i.e., potential evaporation over precipitation) and defines evaporation's water and energy limits. A basin's movement within the Budyko space illustrates its hydroclimatic change and helps identify the main drivers of change. On the one hand, long-term aridity changes dr...

Virkki, V., Alanärä, E., Porkka, M., Ahopelto, L., Gleeson, T., Mohan, C., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Flörke, M., Gerten, D., Gosling, S. N., Hanasaki, N., Müller Schmied, H., Wanders, N., and Kummu, M. 2022. Globally widespread and increasing violations of environmental flow envelopes. Hydrology and Earth Systems Science. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3315-2022

Human actions and climate change have drastically altered river flows across the world, resulting in adverse effects on riverine ecosystems. Environmental flows (EFs) have emerged as a prominent tool for safeguarding the riverine ecosystems, but at the global scale, the assessment of EFs is associated with high uncertainty related to the hydrological data and EF methods employed. Here, we present a novel, in-depth global EF as...

Roth, N., Jaramillo, F., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Zamora, D., Palomino-Angel, S. & Cousins, S.A.O. 2021. A call for consistency with the terms `wetter’ and `drier’ in climate change studies. Environmental Evidence 10(1), 8.

Ongoing and future hydroclimatic changes have large environmental and societal impacts. In terrestrial ecosystems, these changes are usually described with the terms ‘wetter’ and ‘drier’, which refer to the change in the quantity and/or presence of water, either as water fluxes or stocks. We conducted a literature review of almost 500 recent climate change studies to quantitatively investigate the consistency of the use of the...

Ahlström, H., Hileman, J., Wang-Erlandsson, L., García, M., Moore, M., Jonas, K., Pranindita, A., Kuiper, J., Fetzer, I., Jaramillo, F., Svedin, U.. 2021. An Earth system law perspective on governing social-hydrological systems in the Anthropocene. Earth System Governance. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2021.100120

The global hydrological cycle is characterized by complex interdependencies and self-regulating feedbacks that keep water in an ever-evolving state of flux at local, regional, and global levels. Increasingly, the scale of human impacts in the Anthropocene is altering the dynamics of this cycle, which presents additional challenges for water governance. “Earth system law” provides an important approach for addressing gaps in go...

Lade, S.J., Wang-Erlandsson, L., Staal, A. & Rocha, J.C. 2021. Empirical pressure-response relations can benefit assessment of safe operating spaces. Nature Ecology & Evolution 5(8), 1078–1079

In a recent study, Hillebrand et al. tested ecosystem pressure-response data from multiple meta-analyses for multimodality and changing variance, both indicators of ‘tipping point’ thresholds that lead to discontinuous responses such as regime shifts. They found that such thresholds were difficult to detect and argued that threshold and safe operating space concepts are therefore not suitable for environmental management and ...

Falkenmark, M., Wang-Erlandsson, L., 2021. One Earth, Volume 4, Issue 2, 19 February 2021, Pages 213-225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.01.009

The freshwater cycle over land is fundamental for sustainability and resilience, yet is extensively modified and shaped by a vast range of human interventions in the land, water, and climate systems. The consequences of human water-cycle modifications can be non-linear, delayed, and distributed across boundaries, sectors, and scale. This complexity renders freshwater challenges difficult to govern and manage. We here propose a...

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. 2021. 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.

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...