Breaching planetary boundaries: Over half of global land area suffers critical losses in functional biosphere integrity

Mapping ecosystem integrity is a key task of the planetary-boundaries framework. Two new control variables have been suggested for the core planetary boundary for functional biosphere integrity: (1) human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) and (2) a metric for ecological disruption (EcoRisk). However they have not yet been mapped spatially and temporally explicitly. Here, we use simulations with the dynamic global vegetation model LPJmL to map the status of these variables at a spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5° for every year since 1600. We additionally quantify local degradation thresholds by comparison with independent biosphere integrity indicators. We finally aggregate results globally to a planetary boundary status as the land area transgressing the local thresholds. We find that the local boundary is currently transgressed on 60% of the global land area, with 38% already at high risk of degradation. This study provides an important first step and opens the opportunity for further research, especially for finding a planetary-scale threshold.