Another planetary boundary has been exceeded
Green water is a subset of the freshwater cycle. It refers to the phenomena of terrestrial precipitation and evaporation related to soil moisture. Researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Center recently revealed that its natural cycle has been disrupted by the pressure of human activity and that its tolerance threshold has been exceeded. .
More bad news: the discovery of this threshold once again sounds the alarm, reminding us that the green water cycle is essential to the dynamics of the Earth system and that exceeding this threshold jeopardizes its resilience—and thus the survival of species.
This concept of a limit—defined by researchers’ observations—illustrates the imbalances in the biophysical cycles of various systems, all of which are essential to life on Earth. According to scientists, four of these limits have already been exceeded: Climate Change, loss of biodiversity, disruptions to the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and chemical pollution. Five others are currently being studied: land-use change, the’ocean acidification, ozone layer depletion, atmospheric aerosols, and freshwater use.
Crossing the “green water” threshold, a sign of soil aridification, is occurring all over the world.
For more information, see the study by the Stockholm Resilience Center
