| 1. |
- Arheimer, Berit, et al.
(författare)
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The IAHS Science for Solutions decade, with Hydrology Engaging Local People IN a Global world (HELPING)
- 2024
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Ingår i: Hydrological Sciences Journal. - 0262-6667 .- 2150-3435.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The new scientific decade (2023-2032) of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) aims at searching for sustainable solutions to undesired water conditions - may it be too little, too much or too polluted. Many of the current issues originate from global change, while solutions to problems must embrace local understanding and context. The decade will explore the current water crises by searching for actionable knowledge within three themes: global and local interactions, sustainable solutions and innovative cross-cutting methods. We capitalise on previous IAHS Scientific Decades shaping a trilogy; from Hydrological Predictions (PUB) to Change and Interdisciplinarity (Panta Rhei) to Solutions (HELPING). The vision is to solve fundamental water-related environmental and societal problems by engaging with other disciplines and local stakeholders. The decade endorses mutual learning and co-creation to progress towards UN sustainable development goals. Hence, HELPING is a vehicle for putting science in action, driven by scientists working on local hydrology in coordination with local, regional, and global processes.
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| 2. |
- Bjørn, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Challenges and opportunities towards improved application of the planetary boundary for land-system change in life cycle assessment of products
- 2019
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 696
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Life cycle assessment (LCA) can be used to translate the planetary boundaries (PBs) concept to the scale of decisions related to products. Existing PB-LCA methods convert quantified resource use and emissions to changes in the values of PB control variables. However, the control variable for the Land-system change PB, “area of forested land remaining”, is not suitable for use in LCA, since it is expressed at the beginning of an impact pathway and only covers forest biomes. At the same time, LCA approaches for modelling the biogeophysical impacts of land use and land-use change are immature and any interactions with other types of environmental impacts are lagging.Here, we propose how the assessment of Land-system change in PB-LCA can be improved. First, we introduce two control variables for application in LCA; surface air temperature and precipitation, and we identify corresponding provisional threshold values associated with state shifts in four comprehensive biome categories. Second, we propose simplified approaches suitable for modelling the impact of land use and land-use change in product life cycles on the values of these two control variables. Third, we propose how to quantify interactions between the PBs for Land-system change, Climate change and Freshwater use for a PB-LCA method. Finally, we identify several research needs to facilitate full implementation of our proposed approach.
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| 3. |
- Fahrländer, Simon Felix, et al.
(författare)
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Hydroclimatic Vulnerability of Wetlands to Upwind Land Use Changes
- 2024
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Ingår i: Earth's Future. - 2328-4277. ; 12:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite their importance, wetland ecosystems protected by the Ramsar Convention are under pressure from climate change and human activities. These drivers are altering water availability in these wetlands, changing water levels or surface water extent, in some cases, beyond historical variability. Attribution of the effects of human and climate activities is usually focused on changes within the wetlands or their upstream surface and groundwater inputs. However, the reliance of wetland water availability on upwind atmospheric moisture supply is less understood. Here, we assess the vulnerability of 40 Ramsar wetlands to precipitation changes caused by land use and hydroclimatic change occurring in their upwind moisture-supplying regions. We use moisture flows from a Lagrangian tracking model, atmospheric reanalysis data, and historical land use change (LUC) data to assess and quantify these changes. Our analyses show that historical LUC has decreased precipitation and terrestrial moisture recycling in most wetland hydrological basins, decreasing surface water availability (precipitation minus evaporation). The most substantial effects on wetland water availability occurred in the tropic subtropical regions of Central Europe and Asia. Overall, we found wetlands in Central Asia and South America to be the most vulnerable by a combination of LUC-driven effects on runoff, high terrestrial precipitation recycling, and recent decreases in surface water availability. This study stresses the need to incorporate upwind effects of land use changes in the restoration, management, and conservation of the world's wetlands.
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| 4. |
- Keys, Patrick W., et al.
(författare)
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Atmospheric water recycling an essential feature of critical natural asset stewardship
- 2024
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Ingår i: Global Sustainability. - 2059-4798. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Non-technical summary. In this paper, we explore how critically important ecosystems on the land provide evaporation to the atmosphere, which will later fall as precipitation elsewhere. Using a model-based analysis that tracks water flowing through the atmosphere, we find that more than two-thirds of the precipitation over critically important ecosystem areas is supplied by evaporation from other land. Likewise, more than 40% of the evaporation from critically important ecosystems falls as precipitation on other land. We conclude our work by discussing the policy implications for how these critically important ecosystems connect spatially distant wild and working lands via the atmospheric water cycle.Technical summary. Global ecosystems are interconnected via atmospheric water vapor flows. Land use change can modify evaporation from land, altering atmospheric moisture recycling and potentially leading to significant changes in downwind precipitation and associated ecological impacts. We combine insights on global ecosystem-regulated moisture recycling with an analysis of critical natural assets (CNA, the 30% of global land providing most of nature's contributions to people) to reveal the sources and sinks of atmospheric water cycle regulation. We find that 65% of the precipitation over CNA is supplied by evaporation from other land areas. Likewise, CNA regions supply critical moisture as precipitation to terrestrial natural ecosystems and production systems worldwide, with 44% of CNA evaporation falling on terrestrial surfaces. Specifically, the Congo River basin emerges as a hotspot of overlap between local atmospheric water cycle maintenance and concentration of nature's contributions to people. Our results suggest global priority areas for conservation efforts beyond and in support of CNA, emphasizing the importance of sparsely populated managed forests and rangelands, along with wild forests, for fostering moisture recycling to and within CNA. This work also underlines the manifold benefits associated with achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #15, to sustainably manage terrestrial life and conserve biodiversity.Social media summary. Critically important ecosystems are essential for connecting distant landscapes via the atmospheric water cycle.
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| 5. |
- Keys, Patrick W., et al.
(författare)
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The dry sky : future scenarios for humanity's modification of the atmospheric water cycle
- 2024
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Ingår i: Global Sustainability. - 2059-4798. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Non-Technical Summary. Human societies are changing where and how water flows through the atmosphere. However, these changes in the atmospheric water cycle are not being managed, nor is there any real sense of where these changes might be headed in the future. Thus, we develop a new economic theory of atmospheric water management, and explore this theory using creative story-based scenarios. These scenarios reveal surprising possibilities for the future of atmospheric water management, ranging from a stock market for transpiration to on-demand weather. We discuss these story-based futures in the context of research and policy priorities in the present day.Technical Summary. Humanity is modifying the atmospheric water cycle, via land use, climate change, air pollution, and weather modification. Historically, atmospheric water was implicitly considered a ‘public good’ since it was neither actively consumed nor controlled. However, given anthropogenic changes, atmospheric water can become a ‘common-pool’ good (consumable) or a ‘club’ good (controllable). Moreover, advancements in weather modification presage water becoming a ‘private’ good, meaning both consumable and controllable. Given the implications, we designed a theoretical framing of atmospheric water as an economic good and used a combination of methods in order to explore possible future scenarios based on human modifications of the atmospheric water cycle. First, a systematic literature search of scholarly abstracts was used in a computational text analysis. Second, the output of the text analysis was matched to different parts of an existing economic goods framework. Then, a group of global water experts were trained and developed story-based scenarios. The resultant scenarios serve as creative investigations of the future of human modification of the atmospheric water cycle. We discuss how the scenarios can enhance anticipatory capacity in the context of both future research frontiers and potential policy pathways including transboundary governance, finance, and resource management.Social Media Summary. Story-based scenarios reveal novel future pathways for the management of the atmospheric water cycle.
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| 6. |
- Nyasulu, Maganizo Kruger, 1988-, et al.
(författare)
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African rainforest moisture contribution to continental agricultural water consumption
- 2024
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Ingår i: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. - 0168-1923 .- 1873-2240. ; 346
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 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 precipitationshed), the estimates of African rainforest's moisture contribution to agricultural precipitation, and the evaporation from agricultural land across the continent. Applying a moisture tracking model (UTRACK) and a dynamic global vegetation model (LPJmL), we find that the Congo rainforest (>60 % tree cover) is a crucial moisture source for many agricultural regions. Although most of the rainforest acreage is in the DRC, many neighboring nations rely significantly on rainforest moisture for their rainfed agriculture, and even in remote places, rainforest moisture accounts for ∼10–20 % of agricultural water use. Given continuous deforestation and climate change, which impact rainforest areas and resilience, more robust governance for conserving the Congo rainforest is necessary to ensure future food production across multiple Sub-Saharan African countries.
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| 7. |
- Staal, Arie, et al.
(författare)
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Targeted rainfall enhancement as an objective of forestation
- 2024
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 30:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Forestation efforts are accelerating across the globe in the fight against global climate change, in order to restore biodiversity, and to improve local livelihoods. Yet, so far the non-local effects of forestation on rainfall have largely remained a blind spot. Here we build upon emerging work to propose that targeted rainfall enhancement may also be considered in the prioritization of forestation. We show that the tools to achieve this are rapidly becoming available, but we also identify drawbacks and discuss which further developments are still needed to realize robust assessments of the rainfall effects of forestation in the face of climate change. Forestation programs may then mitigate not only global climate change itself but also its adverse effects in the form of drying. Forestation efforts are accelerating across the globe to mitigate climate change, but its effects on regional rainfall are often overlooked. This article proposes the concept of targeted rainfall enhancement, which may be included in decision making on forestation priorities. Forestation programs may then mitigate not only global climate change itself but also its adverse effects in the form of drying.image
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| 8. |
- Søgaard Jørgensen, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Evolution of the polycrisis : Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability
- 2023
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Ingår i: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - 0962-8436 .- 1471-2970. ; 379:1893
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Anthropocene is characterized by accelerating change and global challenges of increasing complexity. Inspired by what some have called a polycrisis, we explore whether the human trajectory of increasing complexity and influence on the Earth system could become a form of trap for humanity. Based on an adaptation of the evolutionary traps concept to a global human context, we present results from a participatory mapping. We identify 14 traps and categorize them as either global, technology or structural traps. An assessment reveals that 12 traps (86%) could be in an advanced phase of trapping with high risk of hard-to-reverse lock-ins and growing risks of negative impacts on human well-being. Ten traps (71%) currently see growing trends in their indicators. Revealing the systemic nature of the polycrisis, we assess that Anthropocene traps often interact reinforcingly (45% of pairwise interactions), and rarely in a dampening fashion (3%). We end by discussing capacities that will be important for navigating these systemic challenges in pursuit of global sustainability. Doing so, we introduce evolvability as a unifying concept for such research between the sustainability and evolutionary sciences.
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