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This paper examines interconnectedness between Covid-19 and six nested subsystems of our planet: people, economy, society, anthroposphere, biosphere and planetosphere. It argues the complexity inside of them and in their interactions. The main question is what paradigmatic shift related to sustainable development economics did Covid-19 initiate, and what are the changes in paradigmatic manifestations of a post Covid-19 sustainable economic theory. Through comparison between neoclassical economics together with neoclassical paradigm manifestations, and what should be changed to avoid business as usual and enhance environmental economy, the paper concludes that much of everyday economic intellectual constructs and activities, including dominant economic theory is the part of the present reality that is not sustainable and has to be changed.

Digital elevation models (DEMs) provide fundamental depictions of the three-dimensional shape of the Earth’s surface and are useful to a wide range of disciplines. Ideally, DEMs record the interface between the atmosphere and the lithosphere using a discrete two-dimensional grid, with complexities introduced by the intervening hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere. The treatment of DEM surfaces, affected by these intervening spheres, depends on their intended use, and the characteristics of the sensors that were used to create them. DEM is a general term, and more specific terms such as digital surface model (DSM) or digital terrain model (DTM) record the treatment of the intermediate surfaces. Several global DEMs generated with optical (visible and near-infrared) sensors and synthetic aperture radar (SAR), as well as single/multi-beam sonars and products of satellite altimetry, share the common characteristic of a georectified, gridded storage structure. Nevertheless, not all DEMs share the same vertical datum, not all use the same convention for the area on the ground represented by each pixel in the DEM, and some of them have variable data spacings depending on the latitude. This paper highlights the importance of knowing, understanding and reflecting on the sensor and DEM characteristics and consolidates terminology and definitions of key concepts to facilitate a common understanding among the growing community of DEM users, who do not necessarily share the same background.

Ecosystem is having a new physical dimension as evidenced by the increasing contribution from man-made plastics synthesized and consumed by our society. Anthroposphere, a brand new constituent, shall be added into the existing lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere as a whole for the ecosystem. This new class of anthropogenically-produced materials is xenobiotic and has its own physical form persistent and building up in the ecosystem. Its occurrence in different ecosystems will increase continuously over time. Its hazards and potentially effects in different ecosystems shall be evaluated with a new framework to advance a better understanding of its long-term impact and the mechanisms involved in the changing world. The impacts from these plastics shall be much more than its non-degradability and the potential hazards as observed and a better understanding based on pure science is required. A new opportunity is ahead of us for a collective and immediate action to assess the new dimension of the anthroposphere in the ecosystems to advance the new knowledge on this research subject.

Mining as a part of anthroposphere is one of the main activities for the world economy and creating social welfare. However, such activities entail the damages to the four other spheres of the environment including atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. These negative effects along with some of the socio-economic impacts of mining activities threaten access to sustainable development (SD) objectives. Nevertheless, the impact assessment on SD indexes is important for keeping mining activities in line with the principles of SD. The present study was conducted to develop a generic procedure for impact assessment of mining activities on SD indexes. To achieve this goal, by taking advantages of two dimensional (2D) assessment matrix and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making techniques, a hybrid approach for assessing the impacts of mining activities on the criteria related to SD indexes was proposed. Fourteen SD criteria including eight environmental, three social and three economic criteria were suggested for this purpose. Compared to other similar studies, the proposed approach is preferred because of its specific impacting factors for each mining project and considering the relative weight of each impacting factor on 2D assessment matrix. The proposed approach was verified in two iron ore mines in Iran. The results showed that the relative score of overall impacts of mining activities on SD indexes in these two mines is 38% and 46%, which indicate the medium severity level of overall impacts in these two mines. Therefore, the proposed approach can be used as a reliable decision support system to evaluate the impacts of mining activities on SD indexes and determine the severity level of impacts on each SD criterion.

The world has been officially confronting the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 with countries worldwide experiencing a pattern of infectious spikes and regressions. Not surprising, the first to note a surge in COVID-19 cases were environmental scientists. This finding has been derived from wastewater analysis [1]. Scientists around the world have developed methods to detect viral RNA in sewage collected for biological cleaning. While the worldwide accuracy of predictions has been variable, wastewater analysis conducted by a multidisciplinary working group in Thessaloniki, Greece has been praised for its promising results [2]. The critical element of their success is a physicochemical model rationalizing SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater [3]. Porous solids, such as soil and rubbish, may absorb viral fragments, decreasing the measured viral load and the subsequent ability to predict infectious surges. Environmental factors such as flow rate, suspended solids, quality and quantity of organic matter have been used to optimize the detection of viral components. Along with this, the working group in Thessaloniki, Greece, took into account the concept of “total environment” in an attempt to decrease discrepancies in measuring viral loads by previous research groups worldwide. "Total environment," is a novel term pertaining to the interaction of physical and anthropogenic environmental factors. In this context, climate change contributes to the disruption of the balance between the non-living (atmosphere) and the living (biosphere and anthroposphere) systems of the environment, which seems to be related to the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.

Soil water repellency (SWR) is a widespread phenomenon that influences patterns of soil wetting, runoff, evapotranspiration and availability of water for plants. In natural ecosystems there is emerging evidence that some plants can take advantage of non-uniform wetting patterns, leading to the emergence of co-evolutionary behaviour. In this review, SWR is considered in terms of five spheres of influence. Given the presence of hydrophobic organic material in the biosphere, the strength, severity and persistence of SWR is influenced by properties at the surface of the lithosphere and prevailing conditions in the atmosphere and hydrosphere. These in turn, can be modified by activities in the anthroposphere. This review thus examines the strength, severity and persistence of non-wetting behaviour with reference to these five spheres of influence and also the interactions between the spheres. It is focused on (i) how SWR is characterised to provide insight into how different measurement techniques have specific operational ranges, (ii) how SWR has developed as an indirect consequence of evolution in natural ecosystems and (iii) how feedbacks across the different spheres have emerged. It demonstrates that management and restoration of natural ecosystems with water repellent soils is very different from management of productive crops in monocultural agricultural systems, controlled in the anthroposphere.

Tracking the concentration of elements in the organs of endangered animal species can provide significant knowledge about environmental hazards and allows more targeted protective measures to be taken. In this paper the differences in concentrations of 27 elements in the livers of free-ranging European bison were studied. The ICP-OES method was applied to study the four main Polish populations, which live in lowland (Bialowieska, Knyszynska and Borecka forests) and mountain (Bieszczady) habitats. The study was based on a unique and relatively large amount of comparative material. It was found that European bison populations that live in different locations differ from each other in terms of the hepatic concentrations of 17 of the elements studied in this work. The mountain population in Bieszczady was most distinctive due to the higher concentrations of Ba, Ca, Cd, Se, and the lower concentrations of Mo and V (compared to the other populations). Additionally, even geographically close lowland populations sometimes have different hepatic concentrations of particular elements. The sex and age of individuals have a weak effect on mineral status. Although the lithosphere is the primary factor that affects the availability of elements for the European bison, the soil parameters and biosphere can significantly affect the availability of elements, e.g. by accumulation. It was also shown that the anthroposphere plays a role, but this is mainly through agriculture as feeding on arable fields significantly changes the mineral status of European bison. The need for further research, especially on Cd, Se and Cu, was indicated. It was concluded that toxic elements or deficiencies in essential elements in the populations of the studied species should be considered locally as this would allow better understanding of the health condition of individual populations.

We herein explore the connections between the current condition of ecology concerning to sustainable development and the statement of Rutherford regarding the importance of physics to understand sustainability and biological conservation. The recent emergence of organic biophysics of ecosystems (OBEC) may constitute a feasible alternative to fill the gap between conventional ecological thinking and physics, especially thermodynamics. However, our comprehension of sustainability and biological conservation is influenced by the interactions between information and entropy, because we tend to exclude parts of the biosphere as well as their relationships among them. We explore the use of a holistic analysis of sustainability and biological conservation using physics, and also establish a parallelism between Maxwell's demons and human beings. Lastly, the ecological meaning of the hypothetical feasibility of Maxwell's demon at the anthroposphere scale is analyzed starting from the objections of von Smoluchowski, Szilard and Bennet.

In this paper, we review the use of satellite-based remote sensing in combination with in situ data to inform Earth surface modelling. This involves verification and optimization methods that can handle both random and systematic errors and result in effective model improvement for both surface monitoring and prediction applications. The reasons for diverse remote sensing data and products include (i) their complementary areal and temporal coverage, (ii) their diverse and covariant information content, and (iii) their ability to complement in situ observations, which are often sparse and only locally representative. To improve our understanding of the complex behavior of the Earth system at the surface and sub-surface, we need large volumes of data from high-resolution modelling and remote sensing, since the Earth surface exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity and discontinuities in space and time. The spatial and temporal variability of the biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and anthroposphere calls for an increased use of Earth observation (EO) data attaining volumes previously considered prohibitive. We review data availability and discuss recent examples where satellite remote sensing is used to infer observable surface quantities directly or indirectly, with particular emphasis on key parameters necessary for weather and climate prediction. Coordinated high-resolution remote-sensing and modelling/assimilation capabilities for the Earth surface are required to support an international application-focused effort.

In this paper, we review the use of satellite-based remote sensing in combination with in situ data to inform Earth surface modelling. This involves verification and optimization methods that can handle both random and systematic errors and result in effective model improvement for both surface monitoring and prediction applications. The reasons for diverse remote sensing data and products include (i) their complementary areal and temporal coverage, (ii) their diverse and covariant information content, and (iii) their ability to complement in situ observations, which are often sparse and only locally representative. To improve our understanding of the complex behavior of the Earth system at the surface and sub-surface, we need large volumes of data from high-resolution modelling and remote sensing, since the Earth surface exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity and discontinuities in space and time. The spatial and temporal variability of the biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and anthroposphere calls for an increased use of Earth observation (EO) data attaining volumes previously considered prohibitive. We review data availability and discuss recent examples where satellite remote sensing is used to infer observable surface quantities directly or indirectly, with particular emphasis on key parameters necessary for weather and climate prediction. Coordinated high-resolution remote-sensing and modelling/assimilation capabilities for the Earth surface are required to support an international application-focused effort.

Many studies have reported effects of global climate change on wildlife, including changes in species distributions and population sizes but perspectives on interactions between the biosphere and the anthroposphere are limited. Bears have a worldwide range and often come into conflict with humans. We assessed the effects of weather variables including temperature, precipitation, and sunshine on human–bear conflicts. Given that the relationship between climate and bear physiology is poorly understood, we first conducted an exploratory analysis using regression techniques. We then built a final predictive model using generalized linear mixed modelling and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC)-based model selection. Our model highlighted the influence of cold temperatures during denning on the frequency of human–bear conflicts. Cold temperatures during denning are related to increased energy requirements for thermoregulation. It is likely that the resulting increase in demand for food following denning leads to an increase in human–bear conflicts. Our results also indicate that cool springs, lingering winter snowpacks, and hot summers may increase human–bear conflicts due to associated reductions in key food sources.

The critical importance of wilderness areas (WAs) for biodiversity conservation and human well-being is well established yet mapping criteria on which WA management policies are based take neither into account. Current WA mapping methods are framed in terms of absence of anthropogenic influence, and created using visual satellite data, obviating consideration of the ecological or anthropogenic value of WAs. In this paper we suggest that taking the acoustic environment into account could address this lacuna. We report the first investigation into the potential for ecoacoustic methods to complement existing geophysical approaches. Participatory walks, including in situ questionnaires and ecoacoustic surveys were carried out at points along transects traversing urban-wilderness gradients at four study sites in the Scottish Highlands and French Pyrenees. The relationships between a suite of six acoustic indices (AIs), wilderness classifications and human subjective ratings were examined. We observed significant differences between five out of six AIs tested across wilderness classes, demonstrating significant differences in the soundscape across urban-wild gradients. Strong, significant correlations between AIs, wilderness classes and human perceptions of wildness were observed, although magnitude and direction of correlations varied across sites. Finally, a compound acoustic index is shown to strongly predict mapped wildness classes (up to 95% variance explained MSE 0.22); perceived wilderness and biodiversity are even more strongly predicted. Together these results demonstrate that the acoustic environment varies significantly along urban-wild gradients; AIs reveal details of environmental variation excluded under current methods, and capture key facets of the human experience of wildness. An important next step is to ascertain the ecological and anthropogenic relevance of these differences, and develop new automated acoustic analysis methods suited to mapping the environmental characteristics of WAs. Taken together, our results suggest that future management of WAs could benefit from ecoacoustic methods to take the biosphere and anthroposphere into account.

Riparian vegetation is a crucial component of fluvial systems and serves multiple socio-ecological functions. The objective of this review is to follow the scientific trajectory of studies of riparian vegetation throughout history and across regions and fields of knowledge. Such a synthesis is challenging because riparian vegetation is an open co-constructed socio-ecological system at the crossroads of the biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere and anthroposphere; thus, it exhibits a wide range of ecological patterns and functioning depending on climatic, morphological and land-use contexts. To address this, we used qualitative and quantitative approaches in our review of the scientific literature. From the scientific perspective, how riparian vegetation is studied has changed over time (e.g. development of modeling and geomatic approaches) and varies among fluvial systems and geographic areas (e.g. its relation to groundwater is usually studied more in Oceania and Asia than on other continents). This review revealed the lack of a single and well-identified scientific community that focuses on riparian vegetation. This is probably due to the nature of the subject, which includes diverse fields of knowledge and several applied issues: biodiversity, forestry, water quality, hydromorphology, restoration, ecology, etc. Some topics are actively regenerated (e.g. biogeomorphological approaches) and others are emerging, which reflects general trends in ecology (e.g. functional approaches). The literature review indicates that a substantial amount of knowledge already exists; therefore, a major priority of our study is to produce a clear and integrative understanding of riparian zone functioning to address the inherent complexity of these zones and remain valid across a wide diversity of geographical contexts. It is also essential to develop detailed analysis of the sociocultural dimension of riparian vegetation to understand the ecology of riparian zones and to improve riparian vegetation management according to local recommendations in order to maintain and improve its functions and services in the face of global changes.

During latter half of the twentieth century the concept that the behavior of the planet Earth can only be understood in terms of coupling between dynamic systems in atmosphere, solid Earth, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere and anthroposphere was launched. The study of these interactions has become known as Earth System Science. The land surface plays a driving role in Earth System Science through its dominant biospheric and anthropogenic populations. It plays a key connecting role between systems, for example, interacting with the atmosphere through exchange of heat, momentum and trace gases. It serves as a central but complex stage in the carbon and water cycles. Missions to study the land surface are very important and will be increasingly high impact. This paper examines the challenges and gaps in observations of the Land Surface from satellite remote sensing. Satellite observations are required to monitor change, to allow the causes of change to be diagnosed and to understand in detail the current state. However, these observations must also be integrated to have greatest impact, flying in formation or as part of an overall system can yield a much greater dividend than individual measurements. Hence there are a large number of application areas of the land surface, which are increasing at a rapid rate. Fortunately, there is a strong link between variables observed as useful and products, which can be used in application services. Therefore science gaps tend to map into application service gaps, although application areas also demand long-term operational services usually.

This paper presents the first comprehensive review on the scientific utilization of earth observation data provided by the German TerraSAR-X mission. It considers the different application fields and technical capabilities to identify the key applications and the preferred technical capabilities of this high-resolution SAR satellite system from a scientific point of view. The TerraSAR-X mission is conducted in a close cooperation with industry. Over the past decade, scientists have gained access to data through a proposal submission and evaluation process. For this review, we have considered 1636 data utilization proposals and analyzed 2850 publications. In general, TerraSAR-X data is used in a wide range of geoscientific research areas comprising anthroposphere, biosphere, cryosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere. Methodological and technical research is a cross-cutting issue that supports all geoscientific fields. Most of the proposals address research questions concerning the geosphere, whereas the majority of the publications focused on research regarding “methods and techniques”. All geoscientific fields involve systematic observations for the establishment of time series in support of monitoring activities. High-resolution SAR data are mainly used for the determination and investigation of surface movements, where SAR interferometry in its different variants is the predominant technology. However, feature tracking techniques also benefit from the high spatial resolution. Researchers make use of polarimetric SAR capabilities, although they are not a key feature of the TerraSAR-X system. The StripMap mode with three meter spatial resolution is the preferred SAR imaging mode, accounting for 60 percent of all scientific data acquisitions. The Spotlight modes with the highest spatial resolution of less than one meter are requested by only approximately 30 percent of the newly acquired TerraSAR-X data.

Urbanization and industrialization represent largely a process of transforming materials from biosphere and lithosphere to anthroposphere. Understanding the patterns of such anthropogenic material stock accumulation is thus a fundamental prerequisite to assess and sustain how humans alter the biophysical movements of resources around Earth. Previous studies on these anthropogenic stocks, however, are often limited to the global and national scales, due to data gaps at higher spatial resolutions. Here, based on a new set of national materials stock data and nighttime light images, we developed a regression model to map the global anthropogenic stocks of three fundamental construction materials (steel, concrete, and aluminum) at a 1 × 1 km level from 1992 to 2008. We revealed an unevenly distributed pattern, with over 40% found in three belts: from England across the Channel to Western Europe; from eastern coast China to South Korea and Japan; and from Great Lakes along eastern coast of United States to Florida. The spatial-temporal dynamics of global anthropogenic stocks at smaller spatial scales reflect a combined effect of physical geography, architectural and construction specifications, and socioeconomic development. Our results provide useful data that can potentially support policy-makers and industry on resource efficiency, waste management, urban mining, spatial planning, and environmental sustainability at regional and urban scales.

A series of independent calculations by researchers from Australia, Russia, and the United States shows that a global polyfurcation, unprecedented in terms of significance, may take place sometime around the mid-21st century. This conclusion was reached by extrapolating to the future the logarithmic law of acceleration, which embraces phase transitions in the history of the biosphere and anthroposphere over 4 billion years. This article considers palliatives of planetary civilization beyond the big evolutionary singularity in the context of mega-history and synergetics. In the opinion of the author, this approach provides universal grounds for a mathematical conclusion and, in addition, helps attract the newest data of psychology and cultural anthropology.

The landscape surrounding urban areas is often used as farmland. With the observed expansion of urban areas over the last decades and a projected continuation of this trend, our objective was to analyze how urbanization affects food supply and demand in The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. We used a chain of simulation models covering components of the atmosphere (climate simulations), biosphere (crop yield calculations), and anthroposphere (simulations of urban expansion and land-use change) to calculate the effect of farmland displacement on land and water resources (hydrosphere). Our simulations show that the displacement of farmland itself has hardly any effect on cropland demand, crop yields, or irrigation water requirements. These results indicate that Jordan has sufficient productive areas available to buffer effects of urban expansion on food production for the next decades. However, this picture changes dramatically once we include changes in socioeconomy and climate in our simulations. The isolated effect of climate change results in an expected increase in irrigation water requirements of 19 MCM by 2025 and 64 MCM by 2050. It furthermore leads to an increase in cropland area of 147 km2 by 2025 and 265 km2 by 2050. While the combined analysis of urban expansion, climate change, and socioeconomic change makes optimistic assumptions on the increase in crop yields by 2050, the results still indicate a pronounced effect on cropland demands (2700 km2) and a steep increase in irrigation water requirements (439 MCM). Our simulation results highlight the importance of high resolution, spatially explicit projections of future land changes as well as the importance of spatiotemporal scenario studies at the regional level to help improving water planning strategies.

Fracking has become a hot topic in the media and public discourse not only because of its economic benefit but also its environmental impacts. Recently, scientists have investigated the environmental impacts of fracking, and most studies focus on its air and ground water pollution. A systematic research structure and an overall evaluation of fracking's impacts on the environment are needed, because fracking does not only influence ground water but most environmental elements including but not limited to air, water, soil, rock, vegetation, wildlife, human, and many other ecosystem components. From the standpoint of the total environment, this communication assesses the overall impacts of fracking on the environment and then designs a total environmental study paradigm that effectively examines the complicated relationship among the total environment. Fracking dramatically changes the anthroposphere, which in turn significantly impacts the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere through the significant input or output of water, air, liquid or solid waste disposals, and the complex chemical components in fracking fluids. The proposed total environment study paradigm of fracking can be applied to other significant human activities that have dramatic impacts on the environment, such as mountain top coal mining or oil sands for environmental studies.

With the seriously polluted environment due to social development, the sustainability of net primary production (NPP), which is used to feed most lives on the earth, has become one of the biggest concerns that we have to consider for the sake of food shortage. There have been many researches analyzing one or two potential impact factors of NPP based on field observation data, which brings about many uncertainties for further calculation. Moreover, the frequently used process-based models heavily depend on the understandings of researchers about the NPP process. The premises of such models hinder the impact factor analysis from being objective and confident. To overcome such shortages, we collected 27 potential impact factors of global NPP in terms of eight land cover types. The feature variables include atmosphere, biosphere, anthroposphere and lithosphere parameters, which can be obtained from public available remote sensed products. The experiment shows that latitude, irradiance ultraviolet and normalized difference vegetation index are dominant factors impacting global NPP. Anthropogenic activities, precipitation and surface emissivity are influencing NPP calculation largely. However, some commonly used biosphere parameters in process-based models are actually not playing that important roles in NPP estimation. This work provides a new insight in analyzing NPP impact factors, being more objective and comprehensive compared with frequently used process-based models.

The total environment includes 5 closely-linking circles, in which biosphere and lithosphere are the active core. As global population increases and urbanization process accelerates, arable land is gradually decreasing under global climate change and the pressure of various types of environmental pollution. This case is especially for China. Land is the most important resources for human beings' survival. How to increase and manage arable land is the key for sustainable agriculture development. China has extensive marshy land that can be reclamated for the better potential land resources under the pre- condition of protecting the environment, which will be a good way for enlarging globally and managing arable land. Related studies have been conducted in China for the past 30years and now many results with obvious practical efficiency have been obtained. For summarizing these results, salt-soil will be the main target and related contents such as nutrient transport, use types, biodiversity and interactions with plants from molecular biology to ecology will be covered, in which the interactions among biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere and anthroposphere will be focused on.

Sustainability has a plethora of ambiguous definitions, partly because there are no consistent timescales acceptable to all interested authors. Co-evolutionary processes between the anthroposphere and the biosphere offer an alternative to sustainability and hence the timescales could be examined by a simple systems analysis. We consider a system of anthropospheric food energy demand and entropy production to evaluate the timescales of sustainability at past technological revolutions in the anthroposphere. Our analysis suggests that each of technological revolutionary steps, the Neolithic/Agricultural, Industrial, and Information Revolutions, has forced the sustainability timescale to decrease by an order of 2. However, we suggest that the minimum timescale of the most recent sustainability is 100–400 years, which is longer than that implied by other sustainability indices (∼100 years). The recently emerged concept of ‘futurability’, an ideal form of sustainability, could help seek futurable states of human–environment interactions beyond the next few hundred years.

The global biosphere has begun to change fundamentally as a consequence of human actions. This change can be understood as a consequence of a major transition in the evolution of life on Earth, the emergence of human language, which opened up new pathways of biological information transmission. The challenge facing the humans species now is to not just suffer the consequences of this change, but to develop a science of Earth system analysis that will allow the collective, globally networked reflective capacity of humans to chart paths into the future that are sustainable. Global observation and computer modelling are important elements of this process. Such models for the biosphere predict large-scale reorganisation of the functional composition of the terrestrial biosphere under strong anthropogenic climate change. Considering the advent of humans and of global change on the background of the past evolution of life on Earth, it is obvious that the co-evolution between geosphere and biosphere that has characterised Earth history in the past has expanded to include the anthroposphere as a third interacting element.

Welcome to this Special Issue of the Journal of Geoscience Education, dedicated to discussing Earth system science education: its present state and future directions. Due to the diversity and complexity of Earth system processes, scientists and educators commonly are required to comprehend and apply knowledge of the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and anthroposphere in their research and in the classroom. The exciting and integrative aspects of Earth system science enter with the recognition that none of these spheres occurs in isolation; instead, they interact to produce the Earth system, in a grand "symphony of the spheres." The symphony metaphor can be used to describe the concordant physical, biological, chemical and social processes that define conditions on our planet. Just as each instrument in a symphony works in concert with the others to make polyphonic music, so to do elements of air, water, land and fife act and interact to create the Earth system that operates in harmony on a planetary scale. Whether symphony or planet Earth, the ensemble of interrelated states ana processes produces a complexly woven music that collectively makes the group far more interesting and dynamic than any of the parts. Of course the metaphor has limitations, and there are important differences between a symphony and the Earth system, including issues of direction (e.g., lack of a score in the Earth system), scale and complexity. A student of the symphony has a fundamentally finite task when listening and examining the musical score to extract a theme, a melody or a variation. A student of music can even experiment with the score to examine the effect of individual instruments or sections on the final symphonic performance. The student of the Earth system, however, has a much more daunting task. The nearly infinite combined effects of a myriad of complex processes defy simple analysis, and direct, controlled experiments upon the system as a whole are impossible. Yet, careful observation of the Earth system coupled with an understanding of physical, chemical and biological principles has given rise to complex models of air, water, land and life processes that can be used to predict the state, process and evolution of the system overall. Indeed, the study of Earth system science can be considered exploration in itself as deeper or more subtle relationships and dependencies within and among the spheres emerge. Developing student understanding of these spheres and their linkages is a central focus of Earth system science. Hence, at its finest, Earth system science education engages scientists and educators in the collaborative interdisciplinary development and offering of courses and learning resources focused on understanding and application of Earth system and global change science in the classroom and laboratory. This special issue focuses on exploring exemplary courses, curricula, degree programs, learning resources and programs centered on Earth system science education. Papers include demonstration of effective technological tools, techniques facilitating systems thinking, and pedagogical approaches. Authors address diverse topics and questions including: How is Earth system science defined and what are appropriate strategies for conveying this concept to students? What are the most productive instructional technologies, and how and when are they best applied? What are effective means to teach students of the connectivity among spatial and temporal scales and on linkages among the spheres? Our solicitation expressed special interest in papers describing lessons learned in: developing and sharing content; utilizing Earth system science topics to engage students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning; and in building working interdisciplinary partnerships, as well as papers that pursued formal evaluation of Earth system science learning materials and programs overall. …

A global unified metamodel of the biosphere (GUMBO) was developed to simulate the integrated earth system and assess the dynamics and values of ecosystem services. It is a ‘metamodel’ in that it represents a synthesis and a simplification of several existing dynamic global models in both the natural and social sciences at an intermediate level of complexity. The current version of the model contains 234 state variables, 930 variables total, and 1715 parameters. GUMBO is the first global model to include the dynamic feedbacks among human technology, economic production and welfare, and ecosystem goods and services within the dynamic earth system. GUMBO includes modules to simulate carbon, water, and nutrient fluxes through the Atmosphere, Lithosphere, Hydrosphere, and Biosphere of the global system. Social and economic dynamics are simulated within the Anthroposphere. GUMBO links these five spheres across eleven biomes, which together encompass the entire surface of the planet. The dynamics of eleven major ecosystem goods and services for each of the biomes are simulated and evaluated. Historical calibrations from 1900 to 2000 for 14 key variables for which quantitative time-series data was available produced an average R2 of 0.922. A range of future scenarios representing different assumptions about future technological change, investment strategies and other factors have been simulated. The relative value of ecosystem services in terms of their contribution to supporting both conventional economic production and human well-being more broadly defined were estimated under each scenario, and preliminary conclusions drawn. The value of global ecosystem services was estimated to be about 4.5 times the value of Gross World Product (GWP) in the year 2000 using this approach. The model can be downloaded and run on the average PC to allow users to explore for themselves the complex dynamics of the system and the full range of policy assumptions and scenarios.

The Music of the Spheres was a model of the universe proposed by Pythagoras and Aristotle, which explained cosmology in terms of spheres to which the sun, the moon and the planets were pinned, while their motion was driven by something akin to music. Modern thinking, related to ecology and industrial ecology, has metaphorically breathed life back into this old model by speaking about spheres again: biosphere, geosphere, anthroposphere, technosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, atmosphere, etc. Sustainable development also speaks about its three pillars (economy, environment, society) represented in a Venn diagram as intersecting circles (or spheres). All these models differ from the models of physicists, as they are more conceptual diagrams than a representation of the world as it is. Thus, they remind us of the old Music of the Spheres model. They also stress connections, exchanges, equilibria between the spheres – or the lack of them –, like Pythagoras’ music. The presentation will discuss these various approaches, see how they match to some extent, but also how they do not show a perfect fit. Analyzing what happens at the boundaries of the spheres, where they overlap or penetrate into each other, is a powerful way to analyze the connection between technology, society, life and ecosystems. It can also help discuss pollution, ecotoxicology and explore global solutions.

The ability to handle fire is, along with language and the use of tools, a universal human attainment: no human society in historical times is known to have lived without it. The ability to handle fire is also exclusively human: whereas other animals use rudimentary signals and tools only humans have learned to handle fire. From the outset, mastery of fire has strengthened the position of humans in the biosphere. At the same time, it has deeply affected the relations among humans themselves. Appreciation of the control over fire is therefore essential for an understanding of both the external expansion and the concomitant long-term internal transformation of the anthroposphere. The control over fire has been essential in the emergence of agriculture and stock raising, as well as the rise of modern industry. Its implications, including both benefits and costs, are so far-reaching as to often remain unnoticed and taken for granted. This entry intends to convey the enormous importance of the fire regime for human history and its profound impact on the biosphere.

Human activities exert global-scale impacts on our environment with significant implications for freshwater-driven services and hazards for humans and nature. Our approach to the science of hydrology needs to significantly change so that we can understand and predict these implications. Such an adjustment is a necessary prerequisite for the development of sustainable water resource management strategies and to achieve long-term water security for people and the environment. Hydrology requires a paradigm shift in which predictions of system behavior that are beyond the range of previously observed variability or that result from significant alterations of physical (structural) system characteristics become the new norm. To achieve this shift, hydrologists must become both synthesists, observing and analyzing the system as a holistic entity, and analysts, understanding the functioning of individual system components, while operating firmly within a well-designed hypothesis testing framework. Cross-disciplinary integration must become a primary characteristic of hydrologic research, catalyzing new research and nurturing new educational models. The test of our quantitative understanding across atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere will necessarily lie in new approaches to benchmark our ability to predict the regional hydrologic and connected implications of environmental change. To address these challenges and to serve as a catalyst to bring about the necessary changes to hydrologic science, we call for a long-term initiative to address the regional implications of environmental change.

Classical ore deposits are exceptional local geochemical accumulations of highly concentrated metals of actual or potential industrial interest. This concept of exceptionality is relative to the geochemical background of ore-hosting environments. In the presumably iron-nickel Earth s core, Fe+Ni are predominant hence their accumulation is “normal”. Local accumulations of oxygen, nitrogen nd hydrogen would be exceptional. In biosphere where we live, the situation is reversed. Two end-member mechanisms are capable of causing exceptional local accumulations of metals within the present human habitat and its present technical reach (the anthroposphere)

Though the term anthroposphere does not appear in the classical work by Vladimir Vernadsky, The Biosphere (1967), it should necessarily be introduced in global ecology since human economic activity (industry and agriculture) has reached global scales during the recent three centuries. Human activity has greatly accelerated the biogeochemical flows, extracted vast resources, and produced wastes faster than natural assimilation allows. These impacts raise a new situation of potential ecological crisis.

ESS2010 was the first Open Science Conference of the international collaborative initiative AIMES, and was convened and organized by QUEST, the UK's directed research programme for Earth System science. The conference showcased advances in Earth system modelling, deploying observations and process understanding to develop more quantitative and predictive understanding of the interactions of the climate system, the biosphere and the anthroposphere. These tools extend understanding of the system dynamics of biogeochemical cycles, and give perspectives on the relationships between climate, ecosystems and human needs. As Earth system science is a global research endeavour, and its remit has important societal and policy implications, a recurrent theme in the conference was the responsibility of scientists working on knowledge integration in the global environmental change context.

Earth system analysis — this term is often associated with the study of the ‘solid’ Earth with its surrounding spheres, the atmosphere, cryosphere, and hydrosphere. However, within IGBP (the International Geosphere — Biosphere Programme) — at least — a more general definition, which has been proposed by Schellnhuber (1998, 1999) and Claussen (1998), for example, seems to be generally accepted. According to the latter, Earth system analysis addresses the feedbacks and synergisms between the ecosphere and the anthroposphere. The eco-sphere or, the natural Earth system, encompasses the abiotic world, the geosphere, and the living world, the biosphere, whereas the anthroposphere includes all cultural and socio-economic activities of humankind which can be subdivided into subcomponents such as the psycho-social sphere etc.

An attempt is made to quantify the global element cycle for arsenic, based on an extensive literature research with special emphasis on the most recent works. Reservoirs in and fluxes within and through lithosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere are being presented. Crucial knowledge gaps are addressed and some simple model calculations partially question currently held ideas about sources, pathways, and the fate of arsenic in the environment.

The relevance of statistical work to the broader United Nations effort to address environmental concerns was recognized by the European Conference of Statisticians in 1970. A first paper was prepared and discussed at a meeting of experts in Geneva in 1973 [UN 73]; a follow-up paper was discussed at a seminar sponsored jointly by the Conference of European Statisticians and the Senior Advisors to ECE governments on Environmental Problems, in Warsaw [UN 73a]. At the Warsaw Seminar the following primary classification of elements of a system of environmental statistics was suggested: 1. Natural elements of the environment (atmosphere, hydrosphere, land surface and biosphere, lithosphere) 2. Man made elements of the environment (anthroposphere) 3. Pollutants and wastes 4. Biomes (ecological systems) 5. Natural disasters.

At the beginning of the 1970s was in the Institute of Landscape Ecology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences developed a theoretical and methodological model called the anthropo-ecological system based on the principle of interregulation between three subsystems (biosphere, technosphere, anthropospere). The most important principle between them is the interregulation between biological and economical reproduction processes in the system, based on energo-material and information flows as a background for development. This theoretical approach was later used for methodology and preparing background papers for decision-making. The problem was to coordinate the different approaches of specialized scientific disciplines of nature and social sciences. The background paper has to be prepared on three levels: (1) synthesis of different scientific disciplines and experiments, (2) synthesis from the point of view of biosphere (natural sciences), technosphere (technical and branch-economy); and anthroposphere (social and macroeconomy); (3) anthropoecological synthesis assessing and combining all three approaches in a complex background paper. It has to describe the problem, the solutions propsed in several variants showing all consequences. Every decision based on this material had to be considered as an “experiment pro future” and its results constantly followed in its results in the whole anthropo-ecological system as a kind of “circular process of cognition and decision-making”.

The evolution of life on earth, the appearance of man, and social and historical progress are viewed as stages in a single process of development of the surface of the earth. Using the forum of a popular-science journal, a Soviet geographer noted for his theoretical work on regionalization envisages a time when the natural geographic envelope of the earth (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere) will be so saturated with man-made engineering structures as to become a new entity called anthroposphere. This entity will have the characteristics ot a world-wide city with its municipal institutions. It will be highly organized in combined functional-nodal regions, benefitting from a multilevel system of services and a hierarchy of transport centers. It will be a “superorganism” with remarkable analogies to a living organism.