Review of Quantitative Applications of the Concept of the Water Planetary Boundary at Different Spatial Scales

Abstract

With the advent of the Anthropocene (Lewis & Maslin, 2015), many critical Earth-system processes have been significantly impacted, thus placing the system at great risk of reaching a dangerous level (Steffen et al., 2018). The "planetary boundary" (PB) concept was proposed (Rockstrom et al., 2009a(Rockstrom et al., , 2009b to define a safe operating space for humanity without destabilizing critical planetary processes, with the Holocene baseline corresponding to the optimal planetary state (O'Neill et al., 2018). Specifically, nine PBs have been defined, and climate change and biodiversity integrity have been identified as two core PBs due to the significant impacts of these factors on the Earth system (Steffen et al., 2018). By emphasizing the urgency of taking appropriate actions to defend the Earth against the risks of crossing the "tipping point," PB research has had a considerable impact on global policy-making (Galaz et al., 2012).As an essential part of the PB framework, the water PB provides a global limitation to human manipulation of the water cycle (Rockstrom et al., 2009a). The initial determination of the water PB was made by Rockstrom et al. (2009a), who adopted a blue-water (i.e., water in aquifers, lakes, and dams) use magnitude of 4,000 (4,000-6,000) km 3 /yr as the water PB. A subsequent revision was made by Gerten et al. (2013), who proposed a blue-water use magnitude of 2,800 (1,100-4,500) km 3 /yr as the water PB. In the latest version of the PB framework (Steffen et al., 2015), proposed a two-level water PB, including a global-scale PB and a basin-scale PB. Recently, Gleeson, proposed a series of subboundaries to better examine the role of water-cycle modifications in Earth system resilience. Zipper et al. (2020) further explored how to integrate the water PB with water management from the local to global scales by harmonizing the quantification approaches of fair shares (top-down) and local safe operating spaces (bottom-up). In addition to the blue water-based PB, Wang-Erlandsson et al. (2022) attempted to quantify the water PB from the green water (i.e., terrestrial precipitation, evaporation, and soil moisture) perspective, and indicated a transgression of the green water PB.

A Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) Framework Based on Scientometry for Understanding The Risk Factors in Sustainable Water Resources Management

“…Investigating and managing the key factors to achieve sustainable water resource management is a concept that has attracted public attention in these decades due to the growing water demand and limited availability (Deines et al, 2021;Han et al, 2023). Given the availability of new technologies as well as organizational and environmental changes between different times and locations, the concept and composition of these keys are becoming increasingly complicated.…”