60 percent of the world’s land area is in a precarious state

A new study published in One Earth have for the first time mapped how far different regions have moved beyond “functional biosphere integrity” – the ability of plants to keep the planet’s life-support systems running.

This integrity depends on plants absorbing enough sunlight through photosynthesis to fuel the flows of carbon, water and nutrients that underpin healthy ecosystems. When these flows are disrupted – by farming, deforestation or climate change – landscapes can lose their capacity to regulate the environment, store carbon, and provide food and water.

“There is an enormous need for civilisation to utilise the biosphere – for food, raw materials and, in future, also for climate protection,” says Fabian Stenzel, the study’s lead author and quest researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre.

“It is therefore becoming even more important to quantify the strain we’re already putting on the biosphere – in a regionally differentiated manner and over time – to identify overloads. Our research is paving the way for this,” Stenzel says.

Scientific breaktrough

The research team’s analysis of historical data, going back to the seventeenth century, shows that Europe, Asia and North America have been exceeding safe local limits for centuries – long before climate change became the main environmental concern. Today, 60% of global land is outside those safe limits, and 38% is in a “high risk” category where nature’s ability to self-regulate is heavily compromised.

“These energy flows drive all of life – but humans are now diverting a sizeable fraction of them to their own purposes, disturbing nature’s dynamic processes,” says Wolfgang Lucht, co-author and head of the Earth System Analysis department at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

PIK Director and Centre researcher Johan Rockström, calls the study “a breakthrough from a scientific perspective” and says it could influence climate policy.

“Governments must treat it as a single overarching issue: comprehensive biosphere protection together with strong climate action,” he says.