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Coherently addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals requires planning tools that guide policy makers. Given the integrative nature of the SDGs, we believe that integrative modelling techniques are especially useful for this purpose. In this paper, we present and demonstrate the use of the new System Dynamics based iSDG family of models. We use a national model for Tanzania to analyse impacts of substantial investments in photovoltaic capacity. Our focus is on the impacts on three SDGs: SDG 3 on healthy lives and well-being, SDG 4 on education, and SDG 7 on energy. In our simulations, the investments in photovoltaics positively affect life expectancy, years of schooling and access to electricity. More importantly, the progress on these dimensions synergizes and leads to broader system-wide impacts. While this one national example illustrates the anticipated impact of an intervention in one specific area on several SDGs, the iSDG model can be used to support similar analyses for policies related to all the 17 SDGs, both individually and concurrently. We believe that integrated models such as the iSDG model can bring interlinks to the forefront and facilitate a shift to a discussion on development grounded in systems thinking.

We discuss the role of expert modelling in sustainability using a framework designed to improve the effectiveness of the modelling process. Based on the development of a set of reflective questions that can be used at certain key stages in the lifecycle of projects developing such models, we discuss how using the framework would lead to improvements in the coupling of the process of expert modelling with the process of intervention, which is implied by the existence of the expert modelling project. This questioning pushes the development of a framework beyond considerations of ontology and epistemology into issues of axiology and praxis; extending the notion of contested modelling beyond the narrow scientific sense to a wider social setting. Our framework has been developed through a case study analysis of the effectiveness of four research initiatives that have used expert modelling to address the complexity of intervention in a sustainability context. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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.

There is a need for more integrated research on sustainable development and global environmental change. In this paper, we focus on the planetary boundaries framework to provide a systematic categorization of key research questions in relation to avoiding severe global environmental degradation. The four categories of key questions are those that relate to (1) the underlying processes and selection of key indicators for planetary boundaries, (2) understanding the impacts of environmental pressure and connections between different types of impacts, (3) better understanding of different response strategies to avoid further degradation, and (4) the available instruments to implement such strategies. Clearly, different categories of scientific disciplines and associated model types exist that can accommodate answering these questions. We identify the strength and weaknesses of different research areas in relation to the question categories, focusing specifically on different types of models. We discuss that more interdisciplinary research is need to increase our understanding by better linking human drivers and social and biophysical impacts. This requires better collaboration between relevant disciplines (associated with the model types), either by exchanging information or by fully linking or integrating them. As fully integrated models can become too complex, the appropriate type of model (the racehorse) should be applied for answering the target research question (the race course).

Extreme weather events, such as the UK floods of 2007 and cold snap of 2010–2011, stress the importance of infrastructure systems' resilience for business continuity. The interconnected nature of critical national infrastructure and its component parts places demands on the approach used to deal with its subsequent complexity. Recognition of infrastructure as a complex adaptive system has led to the development of an innovative, systems-based methodology for sustainability assessment in the built environment. The methodology consists of a database of causal interactions which, when combined with a process, allows users to produce causal loop diagrams that identify unanticipated systemic behaviour, communicate risks, share knowledge, and identify systemic intervention points that minimise negative consequences and add value in a project context. The approach is applied to highlight the key characteristics of complex adaptive systems that critical national infrastructure exhibits and show how the technique can be used to increase infrastructure resilience and sustainability.

A transition to a decentralised, decarbonised energy system for the domestic sector is constrained by the difficulty of obtaining energy balance between fluctuating demand and the intermittent, non-dispatchable power supply delivered by most renewables. A microgrid system including a mix of renewable generation technologies, energy storage and demand response (DR) systems has been modelled using a linear programming approach, based on real world data of residential energy consumption and weather variables. This model allows the exploration of the effects of fluctuations in demand and supply, microgrid scale and configuration, energy management options and alternative optimisation criteria. The model demonstrates quantitatively that a mixed-renewables microgrid system can reduce demand fluctuations and improve energy balance. Peak demand hour fluctuations were reduced by up to 19% for a simulated microgrid containing 144 households with one renewable unit and four batteries per household, with a renewables mix of 83% photovoltaic (PV) panels and 17% wind turbines. With this system, the demand on macrogrid energy supply was reduced by 16%, CO2 emissions associated with energy use were reduced by 10% for all hours of operation, and by 74% during the hours of renewable supply. These findings suggest that microgrids using contemporary technologies can contribute significantly to CO2 mitigation targets.

The Integrated History and future of People on Earth (IHOPE) initiative is a global network of researchers and research projects with its International Program Office (IPO) now based at the Stockho ...

The organic component of atmospheric reactive nitrogen plays a role in biogeochemical cycles, climate and ecosystems. Although its deposition has long been known to be quantitatively significant, it is not routinely assessed in deposition studies and monitoring programmes. Excluding this fraction, typically 25-35%, introduces significant uncertainty in the determination of nitrogen deposition, with implications for the critical loads approach. The last decade of rainwater studies substantially expands the worldwide dataset, giving enough global coverage for specific hypotheses to be considered about the distribution, composition, sources and effects of organic-nitrogen deposition. This data collation and meta-analysis highlights knowledge gaps, suggesting where data-gathering efforts and process studies should be focused. New analytical techniques allow long-standing conjectures about the nature and sources of organic N to be investigated, with tantalising indications of the interplay between natural and anthropogenic sources, and between the nitrogen and carbon cycles.

This review considers the ways in which atmospheric organic nitrogen has been measured and linked to potential sources. Organic N exists in gas, particle and dissolved phases and represents a large (ca. 30%) fraction of total airborne nitrogen, but with large variability in time and space. Although some components (e.g. amines) have been the subject of several studies, little information is available for the many other components of organic N that have been identified in individual measurements. Measurements of organic N in precipitation have been made for many decades, but both sampling and chemical analytical methods have changed, resulting in data that are not directly comparable. Nevertheless, it is clear that organic N is ubiquitous and chemically complex. We discuss some of the issues which have inhibited the widespread adoption of organic N as a routine analyte in atmospheric sampling, and identify current best practice. Correlation analysis is the most widely used technique for attributing likely sources, examining the co-variation in time and/or space of organic N with other components of precipitation or particulate matter, yet the shortcomings of such simple approaches are rarely recognised. Novel measurement techniques which can identify, if not yet quantify, many of the components of particulate or dissolved organic N greatly enhance the data richness, thereby permitting powerful statistical analyses of co-variation such as factor analysis, to be employed. However, these techniques also have their limitations, and whilst specific questions about the origin and fate of particular components of atmospheric organic N may now be addressed, attempts to quantify and attribute the whole suite of materials that comprise atmospheric organic N to their sources is still a distant goal. Recommendations are made as to the steps that need to be taken if a consistent and systematic approach in identifying and quantifying atmospheric organic N is to progress. Only once sources have been recognised can any necessary control measures to mitigate adverse effects of atmospheric organic N on human health or ecosystem function be determined.

Complex Earth system models, and their various sub-components, are not yet subject to rigorous evaluation against observations as much as they should be, despite the existence of hundreds of proposed diagnostics. A concerted process is urgently needed to make this the norm, not the exception. Earth Observation, field observations and palaeo data can be applied to contexts as diverse as wildfire, marine ecosystems, the land carbon cycle, and greenhouse gases. Model evaluation (by comparing models and benchmark data) and model weighting (defining the ‘quality’ of models on the basis of such a comparison) should be considered as separate issues. Systematic approaches to parameter optimization, such as the adjoint technique, allow structural differences between models to be identified and limitations to be addressed. Such methods are established in atmospheric tracer transport and carbon cycling; research carried out in the QUEST programme has demonstrated their applicability for climate modelling. Although it is impossible to devise a foolproof metric for the ability of models to predict the future, relevant metrics could be based on their ability to simulate the past. Furthermore, it should be possible to extend parameter optimization techniques to assimilate data from the past. There are limits to what can be achieved by benchmarking against a mean state, when it is a change in state that is of greatest interest. It is useful to benchmark individual processes rather than aggregate properties. Coupling good components does not automatically result in a good Earth System model, so for complex models, a two-stage process is needed: first, benchmarking the components in stand-alone mode, and second, using the same benchmarks in coupled mode.

Contemporary increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration are in large part the result of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Scenario analysis is commonly used to generate projections of future carbon dioxide emissions, the resulting atmospheric concentrations and climate impact. In most scenario modelling published to date, carbon dioxide emission scenarios are based on demand-side (socioeconomic and technology) factors. The fossil fuel resource is assumed ample enough that supply-side factors do not drive future emission scenarios. This review of the literature on non-renewable resource extraction rate modelling and empirical studies of the global fossil fuel resource base suggests this assumption is unsafe. Supply-side factors can be expected to drive extraction rates and therefore carbon dioxide emissions as fossil fuel resources become significantly depleted. It is likely that the future carbon dioxide emission trajectory will become dominated by supply-side factors during the 21st century. By omitting this possibility, most scenario analysis is too narrow. An implication of such narrow scenario analysis is that policy driven by the UNFCCC‟s agreement to “avoid dangerous climate change” targets only demand-side factors to the exclusion of supply-side factors. As supply-side factors come to drive the carbon dioxide emission trajectory, policy focus should switch from demand-side factors to supply-side factors.

The concept of ecosystem services is proliferating rapidly in research and policy world- wide and holds strong appeal as a bridging concept between the natural world and society. In apply- ing the concept, we should remain alert to some 'health warnings' from previous experience in envi- ronmental economics. (1) The ecosystem services concept involves a narrowing of focus onto the money value of ecosystems. Researchers and practitioners should reflect on past efforts in integrative benefits analysis. (2) There can be a conceptual disconnection of value from function, particularly when there is a reliance on benefits transfer, yet the value of ecosystem services is conditional on a well-functioning whole ecosystem. (3) The problem of data paucity is stark. While inadequate data and the resulting uncertainty are ubiquitous problems in environmental decision-making, the pow- erful simplicity of one number—the estimated monetary value of a given ecosystem service—may mean that more nuanced precautionary considerations that normally apply in uncertain contexts are bypassed. New challenges arise because values (determined in the past) are applied to a changing and already resource-depleted world. Here I highlight the non-stationary nature of trends, the extent to which models are trusted and its role in uncertainty and risk, and the need for in-depth interdisci- plinary study. Some organisations have already entered into these meta-debates; examples are the joint Environment Agency/Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System (EA/QUEST) project on uplands and the Economic and Social Research Council-Natural Environment Research Council (ESRC-NERC) interdisciplinary workshop series in the UK, and, internationally, the Ecosystem Services Partnership. It is important that this debate is maintained and extended.

A team‐taught interdisciplinary undergraduate unit in Sustainable Development has been developed and run over the past two years at the University of Bristol. This has been a unique initiative for this university to take. As in most other research‐intensive higher education institutions, teaching generally follows rather traditional disciplinary conventions, operating within departmental bounds. The initiative was unusual – and indeed ambitious – enough to gain the Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement (HEEPI) Green Gown Award in teaching for 2007 (HEEPI is a project supported by the Higher Education Founding Council for England; http://www.heepi.org.uk/green_gown_awards.htm). There are both challenges and pleasures in designing and delivering a team‐taught unit in a traditional university setting. This experience is outlined and evaluated here, giving consideration to both the practical and the more fundamentally philosophical issues encountered in the process.

Increasing quantities of atmospheric anthropogenic fixed nitrogen entering the open ocean could account for up to about a third of the ocean's external (nonrecycled) nitrogen supply and up to ∼3% of the annual new marine biological production, ∼0.3 petagram of carbon per year. This input could account for the production of up to ∼1.6 teragrams of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) per year. Although ∼10% of the ocean's drawdown of atmospheric anthropogenic carbon dioxide may result from this atmospheric nitrogen fertilization, leading to a decrease in radiative forcing, up to about two-thirds of this amount may be offset by the increase in N 2 O emissions. The effects of increasing atmospheric nitrogen deposition are expected to continue to grow in the future.

Jaramillo and Destouni claim that freshwater consumption is beyond the planetary boundary, based on high estimates of water cycle components, different definitions of water consumption, and extrapolation from a single case study. The difference from our analysis, based on mainstream assessments of global water consumption, highlights the need for clearer definitions of water cycle components and improved models and databases.

Crossing the boundaries in global sustainability The planetary boundary (PB) concept, introduced in 2009, aimed to define the environmental limits within which humanity can safely operate. This approach has proved influential in global sustainability policy development. Steffen et al. provide an updated and extended analysis of the PB framework. Of the original nine proposed boundaries, they identify three (including climate change) that might push the Earth system into a new state if crossed and that also have a pervasive influence on the remaining boundaries. They also develop the PB framework so that it can be applied usefully in a regional context. Science , this issue 10.1126/science.1259855

Managed realignment—the deliberate process of realigning river, estuary or coastal defences—is increasingly seen as a key element to sustainable long term flood and coastal management in the UK and other parts of the world, given current trends of sea level rise, and increasing costs of flood and coastal defence. This paper presents results of an extensive consultation of key stakeholders in England and Wales on what they consider to be the main drivers, of and obstacles to, managed realignment. It reveals why managed realignment has not taken place on a larger scale so far, and suggests new directions for a long-term strategic approach to river and coastal flood management.

Despite over a century of published reports of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) in precipitation, its implications are still being appraised. The number of studies focusing on atmospheric organic nitrogen deposition has increased steadily in recent years, but comparatively little has been done to draw together this disparate knowledge. This is partly a consequence of valid concerns about the comparability of analysis and sampling methodologies. Given the current global trends in anthropogenic nitrogen fixation, an improved qualitative and quantitative understanding of the organic nitrogen component is needed to complement the well-established knowledge base pertaining to nitrate and ammonium deposition. This global review confirms the quantitative importance of bulk DON in precipitation. This cumulative data set also helps to resolve some of the uncertainty that arises from the generally locally and temporally limited scale of the individual studies. Because of analytical and procedural changes in recent decades, assessments are made of the comparability of the data sets; caution is needed in comparisons of individual studies, but the overall trends in the compiled set are more robust. Despite the large number of reports considered, evidence for long-term temporal changes in rainwater organic nitrogen concentrations is ambiguous. With regard to sources, it is likely that some of the organic material observed is not locally generated, but undergoes extensive or long-range atmospheric transport. The compiled data set shows a land-to-sea gradient in organic nitrogen concentration. Possible precursors, reported data on the most likely component groups, and potential source mechanisms are also outlined.

The development of a Post-2015 agenda and Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, provide a global window of opportunity to address both social needs and environmental challenges together. This discussion paper by the Stockholm Resilience Centre looks into the links between human wellbeing and the biosphere, and describes why and how these links should influence the formulation of the new SDGs. It explores what we can learn from the MDGs, and how existing international agreements can be reflected in the Post-2015 MDG process. The paper also seeks to contribute to the elaboration of targets, including process-oriented targets and scalable indicators suitable for a rapidly changing world.

Quality infrastructure plays a key role in sustainable development. Achieving a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature requires better measurement, monitoring and management of environmental processes, from local to global scales. Human-caused climate change, biodiversity loss, perturbation of Earth’s biogeochemical cycles, and chemical pollution are global environmental processes where unsustainability has become evident. This report describes issues in the quality infrastructure for these processes.

The organic component of atmospheric reactive nitrogen is known to be important for biogeochemical cycles, climate and ecosystems, but it is still not routinely assessed in atmospheric deposition studies, and most worldwide air quality monitoring networks disregard it. The available jigsaw puzzle pieces of knowledge from diverse sources can now give a richer picture of global patterns of organic nitrogen deposition. This effort at data synthesis highlights the need for more data, but also suggests where those data gathering efforts should be focused. The development of new analytical techniques allows long-standing conjectures about the nature and sources of the organic matter to be investigated, with tantalising indications of the complex interplay between natural and anthropogenic sources, and links between the nitrogen and carbon cycles. Atmospheric emission and deposition models are needed, along with new chemical process models, to let us explore questions about the role and dynamics of organic nitrogen.

International audience; Ecosystem services are defined as the ecological and socio-economic value of goods and services provided by natural and semi-natural ecosystems. Ecosystem services are being impacted by many human induced stresses, one of them being nitrogen (N) deposition and its interactions with other pollutants and climate change. It is concluded that N directly or indirectly affects a wide range of provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services, many of which are interrelated. When considering the effects of N on ecosystem services, it is important to distinguish between different types of ecosystems/species and the protection against N impacts should include other aspects related to N, in addition to biodiversity. The Working Group considered the following priorities of ecosystem services in relation to N: biodiversity; air quality/atmosphere; ecosystem changes; NO3 leaching; climate regulation and cultural issues. These are the services for which the best evidence is available in the literature. There is a conflicting interest between greenhouse gas ecosystem services and biodiversity protection; up to some point of increasing N inputs, net greenhouse gas uptake is improved, while biodiversity is already adversely affected.

Water-soluble organic nitrogen (ON) is an important component of fixed nitrogen in clean marine aerosol and rainwater collected at a site on the windward coast of Oahu, Hawaii. Aerosol material associated with the predominant trade winds carries 3.3 ± 2.0 nmol ON m-3, which makes up roughly one third of the total nitrogen in aerosol (11 ± 4 nmol N m-3). The inorganic nitrogen (65% as nitrate) is predominantly found in coarse-mode aerosol, consistent with displacement reactions of sea-salt chloride. In contrast, most of the ON is found in fine particle (submicrometer) aerosol, and may be associated with gas-to-particle conversions and with long-range transport in the atmosphere. At times, aerosol ON also appears to have a local, anthropogenic source, and when meteorological conditions are favorable, large pulses of ON from these local sources can dominate the total fixed nitrogen in the sampled aerosol (30-50 nmol ON m-3, contributing about 80% of the total aerosol nitrogen). About one fifth of rainwater dissolved nitrogen at this site is organic nitrogen. The average rainwater concentration of dissolved ON was 2.8 µmol N L-1, and of inorganic nitrogen (nitrate plus ammonium) was 15 µmol N L-1. In both rainwater and aerosol, urea was a major component of the ON, contributing about half of the ON and about 15% of total nitrogen. This quantitative importance of urea as a component of ON has not previously been seen in continental locations.

A laboratory assessment has been made of the performance and applicability of several different conductimetric wetness detectors for use in monitoring water distribution on different plant surfaces in a tree canopy. Leaf surfaces were monitored using parallel electrode clip sensors and grid sensors. Fruit and trunk wetness was monitored using parallel electrode sensors encircling fruit and trunk samples. Modifications to the fruit sensors to facilitate fitting and reduce the risk of epidermal damage have been investigated. Generally, the simplest parallel electrode designs performed better than the sensors with intended design refinements, in terms of instantaneous signal onset sensitivity, the matching of sensor signal profiles with weighed water loss profiles, and the accuracy of the determination of wetness persistence on the sampled surfaces. Factors affecting the drying profiles obtained using the sensors include the previous wetting history, the distribution of water on the surfaces, and the surface texture. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Converting measured concentrations into fluxes and using estimates of biological productivity in the coastal waters of the eastern Atlantic Ocean enables us to determine the role of the atmosphere as a source of biologically essential species, including nitrate and ammonium, to the marine biota. To understand the effects of the atmosphere as a source of nitrogen capable of promoting new production, we need to know both the seasonality of the input as well as the effects of extreme high deposition events which, while small in overall annual budget terms, maybe able to extend, or even promote, phytoplankton growth under nutrient depleted summer conditions. Aerosols and rainwater were collected at both Mace Head and at sea aboard RRS Challenger. Temporal patterns have been interpreted using airmass back trajectories which give the predicted air path prior to arrival at the sampling site. Low levels of both nitrate and ammonium are seen associated with marine westerly flow across the Atlantic and northerly air originating in the Arctic region. As expected, marine derived sodium, chloride, magnesium and seasalt sulphate are high during these periods. High concentration nitrate and ammonium events are seen associated with south-easterly flow where the airmass passes over the UK and northern Europe prior to arrival on the west coast of Ireland. In the polluted atmosphere, nitrate exists as nitric acid and as fine mode (1 μm diameter) sodium nitrate: HNO3 (g) + NaCl(s) → NaNO3(s) + HCl(g). This seasalt displacement reaction not only enhances dry nitrate deposition through more efficient gravitational settling of large particles, but also increases the efficiency of precipitational scavenging via inertial impaction. By looking at the size distribution of nitrate, we can see evidence for the seasalt displacement reaction. Under the polluted south-easterly flow, ∼40−60% of the nitrate occurs in the coarse mode fraction. Under clean marine conditions, the seasalt displacement reaction results in almost complete conversion of nitrate from the fine to the coarse aerosol mode. By converting measured wet and dry nitrate, ammonium and organic nitrogen concentrations into fluxes and comparing the data with estimates of biological productivity in the surface waters, our data suggest that ∼30% of new production in eastern Atlantic surface waters off Ireland can be supported by atmospheric inputs in May 1997 and that most of the input occurs during short lived, high-concentration, south-easterly transport events.DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0889.2000.00062.x

Two well established methods that are widely applied in the determination of marine dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) have been investigated in their application to the determination of rainwater DON and the water-soluble organic nitrogen component of atmospheric aerosol. Empirical observation highlighted some difficulties in the analysis of DON in these non-marine matrices, so some practical suggestions for the extension of the oxidative methods to atmospheric samples are proposed. Ten rain samples, 20 aqueous aerosol extracts, and a suite of commercially obtained organic nitrogen compounds were both chemically oxidised by persulfate and oxidised by exposure to high-intensity ultraviolet light. The total dissolved nitrogen concentration of the rains in this study ranged from 4 to 35 μM nitrogen. The aerosol extracts were diluted to a pre-oxidation concentration range of 12–65 μM N for oxidation and analysis. Both UV and persulfate methods require the aqueous extract of the aerosol organic nitrogen to be diluted approximately to rainwater concentrations for optimal oxidation efficiency, since sub-optimal recoveries and high analytical variability arise at high concentration. Some potential causes of analytical interference at higher concentration are discussed. This study shows that total dissolved nitrogen results obtained by the two methods are linearly correlated (with an R 2 of 0.87 for 30 samples) over the full range of natural rainwater concentrations, but results obtained using the persulfate oxidation are about 30% lower than those obtained by photo-oxidation.

The measurement of urea (CO(NH2)2) in rainwater samples from predominantly marine-influenced locations in Bermuda, and Ireland, and in rains and aqueous aerosol extracts from a rural site at UEA, Norwich indicates that urea is not generally a major contributor to atmospheric water-soluble organic nitrogen. At UEA, where anthropogenic and natural sources of urea are expected to be most intense, urea accounts for 40% of the DON measured in those samples. This may be a consequence of strong local sources, or it could possibly result from the partial breakdown of other DON compounds to urea during sample transport and storage. However, the similarity in urea concentrations observed in Pacific samples in this present study and in a previous one ( Timperley et al., 1985 , Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science 42, 1171–1177) suggests that this may reflect a difference in rain chemistry between Atlantic and Pacific rains, perhaps resulting from differences in levels of agricultural urea usage between Asia and the rest of the world.

Sarah E. Cornell - Stockholm Resilience Centre. I lead a transdisciplinary global sustainability research group at SRC, researching the “safe and just operating space for humanity”. We use models and observational evidence of global change to explore options, informing responses by policy, business and communities.

THE input of fixed nitrogen to the oceans by in situ fixation, river/groundwater supply and atmospheric deposition represents an important control on marine productivity on long timescales, and hence on oceana¤-atmosphere CO2 exchange and its effects on climate1a¤-3. Any assessment of human perturbation of the global nitrogen cycle also requires an accurate estimate of these inputs. The current best estimates suggest that the natural fluvial and atmospheric inputs are of similar magnitude3,4, and that globally both have been increased by a factor of two above natural levels as a result of human activity3a¤-5. Dissolved organic nitrogen represents more than half of the fluvial input of dissolved fixed nitrogen, but current estimates of atmospheric inputs are usually based on only the inorganic (NO3- + NH4+) component, although some authors have recognized the potential importance of organic nitrogen6a¤-9. Here we present analyses of dissolved organic nitrogen in rain and snow which show that it is a ubiquitous and significant component of precipitation, even in remote marine areas. Our results require an approximate doubling of present estimates of the atmospheric input of fixed nitrogen to the oceans, and an increase in estimates of the total fixed-nitrogen input by a factor of about 1.5. These results indicate that the human impact on the global nitrogen cycle may be larger than has been thought.

List of editors, scientific editorial team and contributing authors Foreword Sir John Lawton Preface Acknowledgements List of notation 1. Earth system science and society: a focus on the Anthroposphere Sarah E. Cornell, Catherine J. Downy, Evan Fraser and Emily Boyd 2. Fundamentals of climate change science I. Colin Prentice, Peter G. Baines, Marko Scholze and Martin J. Wooster 3. How has climate responded to natural perturbations? Eric W. Wolff, Sandy P. Harrison, Reto Knutti, Maria Fernanda Sanchez-Goni, Oliver Wild, Anne-Laure Daniau, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, I. Colin Prentice and Renato Spahni 4. The Earth system feedbacks that matter for contemporary climate Pierre Friedlingstein, Angela V. Gallego-Sala, Eleanor M. Blyth, Fiona E. Hewer, Sonia Seneviratne, Allan Spessa, Parvadha Suntharalingam and Marko Scholze 5. Earth system models: a tool to understand changes in the Earth system Marko Scholze, Icarus Allen, Bill Collins, Sarah E. Cornell, Chris Huntingford, Manoj Joshi, Jason Lowe, Robin Smith and Oliver Wild 6. Climate change impacts and adaptation: an Earth system view Richard A. Betts, Nigel W. Arnell, Penelope Boorman, Sarah E. Cornell, Joanna I. House, Neil Kaye, Doug McNeall, Michael Sanderson and Andrew Wiltshire 7. Mitigating climate risks by managing the biosphere Joanna I. House, Jessica Bellarby, Hannes Boettcher, Matthew Brander, Nicole Kalas, Peter Smith, Richard Tipper and Jeremy Woods 8. How our Earth system science understanding shapes society's options - key findings, implications and a forward look Sarah E. Cornell and I. Colin Prentice List of acronyms Glossary Index.

Preface 1. The Lund Meeting and the Production of this Book 2. Developing a Vision for the Planet 3. The Starting Point - Planet 2010 4. The Vision of 2050 5. Pathways between 2010 and 2050 6. Back to the Reality of 2010 and the Challenges Ahead

Nature of the problem • Nitrogen (N) inputs from human activities have led to ecological deteriorations in large parts of the coastal oceans along European coastlines, including harmful algae blooms and anoxia. • Riverine N-loads are the most pronounced nitrogen sources to coasts and estuaries. Other signifi cant sources are nitrogen in atmospheric deposition and fi xation. Approaches • Th is chapter describes all major N-turnover processes which are important for the understanding of the complexity of marine nitrogen cycling, including information on biodiversity. • Linkages to other major elemental cycles like carbon, oxygen, phosphorus and silica are briefl y described in this chapter. • A tentative budget of all major sources and sinks of nitrogen integrated for global coasts is presented, indicating uncertainties where present, especially the N-loss capacity of ocean shelf sediments. • Finally, specifi c nitrogen problems in the European Regional Seas, including the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea are described. Key fi ndings/state of knowledge • Today, human activity delivers several times more nitrogen to the coasts compared to the natural background of nitrogen delivery. Th e source of this is the land drained by the rivers. Th erefore, the major European estuaries (e.g. Rhine, Scheldt, Danube and the coastlines receiving the outfl ow), North Sea, Baltic Sea, and Black Sea as well as some parts of the Mediterranean coastlines are aff ected by excess nutrient inputs. • Biodiversity is reduced under high nutrient loadings and oxygen defi ciency. Th is process has led to changes in the nutrient recycling in sediments, because mature communities of benthic animals are lacking in disturbed coastal sediments. Th e recovery of communities may not be possible if high productivity and anoxia persist for longer time periods. Major uncertainties/challenges • Th e magnitude of nitrogen sources are not yet well constrained. Likewise the role of nutrient ratios (N:P:Si ratios) may be a critical variable in the understanding of the development of harmful algae blooms. • Whether only inorganic forms of nitrogen are important for productivity, or whether organic nitrogen is also important is not well understood and needs future attention. Recommendations • For the future it will be necessary to develop an adaptive transboundary management strategy for nitrogen reduction. Th e starting point for such regulation is located in the catchments of rivers and along their way to the coastal seas. • An overall reduction of nitrogen inputs into the environment is urgently necessary, especially in the case of diff use nitrogen inputs from agricultural activities.

Identifying and quantifying the statistical relationships between climate and anthropogenic drivers of fire is important for global biophysical modelling of wildfire and other Earth system processes. This study used regression tree and random forest analysis on global data for various climatic and human variables to establish their relative importance. The main interactions found at the global scale also apply regionally: greatest wildfire burned area is associated with high temperature (> 28 °C), intermediate annual rainfall (350-1100 mm), and prolonged dry periods (which varies by region). However, the regions of highest fire incidence do not show clear and systematic behaviour. Thresholds seen in the regression tree split conditions vary, as do the interplay between climatic and anthropogenic variables, so challenges remain in developing robust predictive insight for the most wildfire-threatened regions. Anthropogenic activities alter the spatial extent of wildfires. Gross domestic product (GDP) density is the most important human predictor variable at the regional scale, and burned area is always greater when GDP density is minimised. South America is identified as a region of concern, as anthropogenic factors (notably land conversions) outweigh climatic drivers of wildfire burned area.

Many contemporary societal challenges manifest themselves in the domain of humanenvironment interactions. There is a growing recognition that responses to these challenges formulated within current disciplinary boundaries, in isolation from their wider contexts, cannot adequately address them. Here, we outline the need for an integrated, trans-disciplinary synthesis that allows for a holistic approach, and, above all, a much longer time perspective. We outline both the need for, and the fundamental characteristics of, what we call “integrated history.” This approach promises to yield new understandings of the relationship between the past, present and possible futures of our integrated human-environment system. We recommend a unique new focus of our historical efforts on the future, rather than the past, concentrated on learning about future possibilities from history. A growing worldwide community of trans-disciplinary scholars is forming around building this Integrated History and future of People on Earth (IHOPE). Building integrated models of past human societies and their interactions with their environments yields new insights into those interactions and can help to create a more sustainable and desirable future. The activity has become a major focus within the global change community.

This thesis investigates community adaptation in two municipalities in Northern Norway. The two municipalities, Berg and Oksnes, were selected in order to understand how northern coastal communitie...

Special issue Contributions from Advances in Marine Ecosystem Modelling Research II 23-26 June 2008, Plymouth, UK.-- 15 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, The MarQUEST (Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Modelling Initiative in QUEST) project was established to develop improved descriptions of marine biogeochemistry, suited for the next generation of Earth system models. We review progress in these areas providing insight on the advances that have been made as well as identifying remaining key outstanding gaps for the development of the marine component of next generation Earth system models. The following issues are discussed and where appropriate results are presented; the choice of model structure, scaling processes from physiology to functional types, the ecosystem model sensitivity to changes in the physical environment, the role of the coastal ocean and new methods for the evaluation and comparison of ecosystem and biogeochemistry models. We make recommendations as to where future investment in marine ecosystem modelling should be focused, highlighting a generic software framework for model development, improved hydrodynamic models, and better parameterisation of new and existing models, reanalysis tools and ensemble simulations. The final challenge is to ensure that experimental/observational scientists are stakeholders in the models and vice versa, MarQUEST was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) as a part of the Quantifying and Understanding the Earth System (QUEST) program

Jaramillo and Destouni claim that freshwater consumption is beyond the planetary boundary, based on high estimates of water cycle components, different definitions of water consumption, and extrapolation from a single case study. The difference from our analysis, based on mainstream assessments of global water consumption, highlights the need for clearer definitions of water cycle components and improved models and databases.