the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 30 Sep 2026
An updated Earth System Impact metric for bridging sub-global pressures and planetary boundaries
Abstract. Human pressures at the local scale are driving transgressions of a planetary safe operating space, compromising global and regional stability and resilience. Tools are needed to help organizations assess their environmental performance by bridging local pressures to planetary impacts. The Earth System Impact (ESI) metric prototype was developed in 2021 to enable evaluations of an organization’s systemic impacts relative to established planetary boundaries translated to the sub-global scale. This metric incorporates key interactions between climate change, land cover change and freshwater flows, distinguishes impacts by region, and accounts for current states of climate, land cover and surface freshwater. Here, we present innovations to the ESI approach to enhance the tool’s utility. Simulation data needed for score construction is updated, and the spatial scope is broadened to include dominantly barren land types which were excluded in the prototype. We draw from the latest assessments of safe and just planetary operating spaces to define regional boundaries for land and water. For water, specifically, we account for both upper and lower bounds in flow alteration while the prototype had only recognized the latter. We calculate two sets of metrics: amplification factors, which measure the extent to which impacts are magnified in the Earth system; and location-specific Carbon, Land and Water ESI coefficients which represent the systemic impact of reference pressures in the form of carbon emissions, land cover change and water withdrawal. Overall, amplification factors increased compared to the prototype. The effects of deforestation on the Earth system were doubled to tripled. Most barren land experienced no net amplification except in Australia and Africa (~39% and 65%, respectively) where surface water scarcity is aggravated. The final ESI coefficients were higher in smaller areas (e.g. C3 grass ecosystems in Africa), indicative of the sensitivity of smaller ecosystems to pressures, and in areas where transgressions are coupled with high amplification.
Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of Earth System Dynamics and on the special issue (Earth resilience in the Anthropocene) to which we would like to resubmit, if possible.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.- Preprint
(1259 KB) - Metadata XML
-
Supplement
(2731 KB) - BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: open (until 24 Nov 2026)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-5352', Anonymous Referee #1, 03 Nov 2026 reply
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-5352', Harald Desing, 06 Nov 2026
reply
Dear authors,
Thank you very much for the possibility to review your paper! The approach is interesting and relevant, especially on capturing the system interactions usually neglected in environmental assessments. Yet, please make it clearer in the introduction on how you envision the ESI metrics being used: would it be on a product/sector level or comparing different interventions at scale? Is the setting of local/downscaled targets necessary or do you only quantify the contribution to global exceedance of PBs?
Some more specific comments:
L.40pp: A common issue with most downscaling approaches is that they are applied either uniformly across boundary categories or rely on the impact structure of the allocated sector/region based on the historic data (grandfathering, which is clearly unsustainable). It is therefore necessary to apply a differentiated allocation based on the transformation of provisioning systems and the priority to the fulfillment of social goals. See e.g. www.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.141447
L.106: why only linear? In principle it could also be non-linear change, but is this a simplifaction of your method? Would it imply that the method is only valid close to the current state of today?
L.130: Indeed, a part of land use is non-agriculture related, but a large part is. Would it then not make sense to add irrigation to the agricultural land use fraction?
L.229: This sentence needs more explanation. Perhaps it is better to call this a minimum and maximum flow boundary, rather than lower and upper, as the latter can also be read as the uncertainty range of the PB framework. Mathematically speaking, do you then have 2 indicators, or do you use a different formula? This remains unclear to me.
Sec 2.3. The cumulative variable of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere poses a significant challenge to measure impact of any (in global dimensions) small activity. The PB defines that CO2 concentration shall stay at or below 350ppm, meaning it has to be at least in a steady state (or declining). The steady state assumption would then necessitate that any anthropogenic addition to the atmosphere is balanced by a natural removal of CO2 (e.g. through sedimentation and natural weathering). This condition allows to define a flow boundary for CO2 which makes sense from an Earth system point of view (see www.doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.26), and goes beyond the simple division of a remaining carbon budget over a specified timeframe. The latter is non-sensical in relation to PBs since the “remaining budget” for 350ppm would be negative.
L.355pp Because this negative interaction is likely overestimated, would it then not make sense to exclude it in precaution? If I understand correctly, this is also what you do later in L.450 by excluding negative values from amplification factors. Perhaps worth mentioning already earlier.
L.472: “Amplification Factors reflecting the extent to which impacts ir carbon…”; did you mean “in”?
L.529 Likewise, 1.5°C is outside SJB (which is 1°C). Also, there is likely no budget left for 1.5°C.
Section 4 is missing a description on how the amplification factors shall be used and what this would imply for assessments of anthropogenic impacts.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5352-RC2
Viewed
| HTML | XML | Total | Supplement | BibTeX | EndNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 448 | 137 | 53 | 638 | 107 | 49 | 41 |
- HTML: 448
- PDF: 137
- XML: 53
- Total: 638
- Supplement: 107
- BibTeX: 49
- EndNote: 41
Viewed (geographical distribution)
| Country | # | Views | % |
|---|
| Total: | 0 |
| HTML: | 0 |
| PDF: | 0 |
| XML: | 0 |
- 1
This paper present an update on the Earth System Impact metrics and studying the interactions between Climate Change-Land Cover Change and Runoff. As a result, new versions of Earth Systems Impact Scores and Amplification factors are presented. In general, the paper is very well written and easy to follow. I am not a core expert on the field, but here are some more specific comments.
- In the intro, could the social foundation also mentioned, as a part of the doughnut economy. The intro is otherwise very clear.
- Is there possibility to add a graphical abstract to the intro, that makes it clear what was done, how it was done and why it was done? Perhaps there could be a triangle schematic that presents interactions and main findings.
- More detailed explanation and discussion of the reference pressure would be good. Same for pressure magnitudes in equation (1). Just to help non-experts to be able to follow. As concrete as possible.
- Just a small typo in the equation (7), u(x_now), ")" should be low.
- The first sentence on line 310 is unclear to me. Can you please check if it could be clarified.
- Just a small detail, typically asterisk "*" is not a proper symbol for multiplication (at least in the technical field), rather use the actual symbols meant for this.
- Perhaps in the future research: Use of quantum computing opportunities for being able to define the simulation grid and to be able to consider biodiversity loss aspects, this would be really important to include them in the analysis.
- Also, perhaps also some discussion could be added to end paragraph on "business within planetary boundaries", and highlight the importance of strong sustainability concept required to secure sustainable living also in the future, the "Wedding cake model".