Taxonomies for structuring models for World-Earth system analysis of the Anthropocene: subsystems, their interactions and social-ecological feedback loops

Abstract

Abstract.In the Anthropocene, social processes have become critical to understanding planetary-scale Earth system dynamics. The conceptual foundations of Earth system modelling have externalised social processes in ways that now hinder progress in understanding Earth resilience and informing governance of global environmental change. New approaches to global modelling are needed to address these challenges, but the current modelling landscape is highly diverse and heterogeneous, ranging from 5 purely biophysical Earth System Models, to hybrid macro-economic Integrated Assessments Models, to a plethora of models of socio-cultural dynamics. World-Earth models, currently not yet available, will need to integrate all these elements, so future World-Earth modellers require a structured approach to identify, classify, select, and combine model components. Here, we develop taxonomies for ordering the multitude of societal and biophysical subsystems and their interactions. We suggest three taxa for modelled subsystems: (i) biophysical, where dynamics is usually represented by "natural laws" of physics, chemistry or 10 ecology (i.e., the usual components of Earth system models), (ii) socio-cultural, dominated by processes of human behaviour, decision making and collective social dynamics (e.g., politics, institutions, social networks), and (iii) socio-metabolic, dealing with the material interactions of social and biophysical subsystems (e.g., human bodies, natural resource and agriculture). We show how higher-order taxonomies for interactions between two or more subsystems can be derived, highlighting the kinds of social-ecological feedback loops where new modelling efforts need to be directed. As an example, we apply the taxonomy to 15 a stylised World-Earth system model of socially transmitted discount rates in a greenhouse gas emissions game to illustrate the effects of social-ecological feedback loops that are usually not considered in current modelling efforts. The proposed taxonomy can contribute to guiding the design and operational development of more comprehensive World-Earth models for

Achieving the 17 sustainable development goals within 9 planetary boundaries

“…Other examples of simple models related to planetary boundaries include Anderies et al (2013) on land/ocean/atmosphere carbon dynamics; Heck et al (2016) whose study linked carbon cycle dynamics with societal land management to explore climate engineering options; and Nitzbon et al (2017) who investigated sustainability-and-collapse oscillations in energy systems. Earth3 also contributes to emerging efforts towards integrated World-Earth models of low complexity designed to simulate, analyse and understand the entanglement of humanity and the biophysical environment in the Anthropocene (Verburg et al, 2016;van Vuuren et al, 2016;Donges et al, 2017;Donges et al, 2018;Robinson et al, 2018).…”

Envisioning a “science diplomacy 2.0”: on data, global challenges, and multi-layered networks

“…The fact that multi-layer modeling of the interrelated dynamics of very different kinds of entities is, in principle, feasible has led to the emergence of the problem of how to model interactions between sub-systems of different nature, especially with the explicit goal to assess the global challenges of the Anthropocene in the framework of earth-system sciences (Subramanian, 2019). Donges et al (2018), for instance, have put forward a taxonomy for modeling global environmental change based on three levels: the biophysical level, the socio-metabolic level, and the sociocultural level. Crucial element of the taxonomy is the hypothesized set of interactions (links) connecting each layer to the others as well as of feedback loops one might expect from these interactions.…”

Earth system modelling with complex dynamic human societies: the copan:CORE World-Earth modeling framework

“…Such social processes such as social learning may be included in models via comparably simple equationbased descriptions (e.g. Donges et al (2018)). Yet, more detailed WEMs should also allow also for representations of the dynamics of the diverse agents and the complex social structure connecting them that constitute human societies, using the tools of agent-based and adaptive network modeling (Farmer and Foley, 2009;Farmer et al, 2015;Müller-Hansen et al, 2017).…”

“…Based on the companion article by Donges et al (2018) that is also part of the Special Issue in Earth System Dynamics on "Social dynamics and planetary boundaries in Earth system modeling", we classify processes occurring in the World-Earth system into three major taxa that represent the natural and societal spheres of the Earth system as well as their overlap (Fig. 2).…”

“…Possible classification of exemplary model processes by owning process taxon (row) and affected process taxon (column) (following the taxonomy developed in the companion paperDonges et al, 2018): environmental (ENV), social-metabolic (MET) and socio-cultural…”