Notable shifts beyond pre-industrial streamflow and soil moisture conditions transgress the planetary boundary for freshwater change

Human actions compromise the many life-supporting functions provided by the freshwater cycle. Yet, scientific understanding of anthropogenic freshwater change and its long-term evolution is limited. Here, using a multi-model ensemble of global hydrological models, we estimate how, over a 145-year industrial period (1861–2005), streamflow and...

A planetary boundary for green water

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...