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Planetary boundaries
Prof. Piotr Kowalik
Gdansk University of Technology
Poland
Piotr Kowalik
• Prof. PhD (water management); Member of the Polish
Academy of Sciences, Bertebos Prize Winner;
• affiliation: Gdansk University of Technology, Gdansk,
Poland.
• mailing address: Gdansk University of Technology
(GUT), Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Narutowicza 11, 80-233 Gdansk Wrzeszcz, Poland,
• telephone: +48 58 347 24 21
• fax: +48 58 347 24 21
• e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Piotr Kowalik
• CV: Born 1939, M Sc in 1961, PhD in
1967, habilitation in 1973, professorship in
1978. Last 25 years he was a head of the
Department of Sanitary Engineering of
Gdansk University of Technology, Poland.
Visiting professor in Firenze, Torino,
Palermo, Grenoble, Uppsala, Helsinki,
Roskilde, Berlin, Covilha, Cardiff. Visiting
researcher in the Netherlands and in
Australia.
Piotr Kowalik
Area of competence: Theory of diffusion of oxygen in
soils; theory of soil water dynamics with water uptake
by roots; theory of water flow in the soil-plantatmosphere systems in agriculture and forestry;
energy forestry modeling; water balance in heavy soils
of alluvial fens; irrigation of soils by wastewater;
constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment;
education of sanitary and environmental engineers in
the past and in the future. He published more than 300
publications with more than 500 international citations.
Concept of boundaries
Concept of planetary boundaries was
introduced by Stockholm Environmental
Institute in 2009.
[Rockstrom J. et al., 2009. Planetary
boundaries: exploring the safe operating
space for humanity. Ecology and Society,
14(2):1-25 (item 32 online).
URL:http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol
14/iss2/art32/].
Nine boundaries
Authors have done a search for critical Earth System
processes. They were able to identify nine such
processes for which boundaries need to be established
to minimize the risk of crossing critical threshold that
may lead to undesirable outcomes. The nine planetary
boundaries identified cover the global biogeochemical
cycles of nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon, and water;
biophysical features of Earth that contribute to the
underlying resilience of its self-regulatory capacity
(marine and terrestrial biodiversity, land systems); and
two critical features associated with anthropogenic global
change (aerosol loading and chemical pollution).
Mountains
• Boundaries can be applied to mountains!
• Lack of human dimension (habitats and
old wisdom)
Evidence
There is ample evidence from local to
regional-scale esosystems, such
asmountains, lakes, forests, and coral
reefs, that gradual changes in certain key
control variables (e.g. biodiversity,
harvesting, exploitation, soil quality,
freshwater flows, and nutrient cycles). The
critical Earth Systems processes are:
Critical processes:
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rate of biodiversity loss;
nitrogen cycle;
climate change;
stratospheric ozone depletion;
ocean acidifation;
phosphorus cycle;
land system change (soil protection);
global freshwater use;
chemical pollution;
aerosol loading.
lost of old habits and wisdom of mountains
Loss of biodiversity
Loss of biodiversity can increase the vulnerability of
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to changes in climate
and ocean acidity, thus reducing the safe boundary
levels for these processes. Current global average
extinction rate is > 100 E/MSY, what means >100
extinctions per million species and year (E/MSY). In the
last 20 years about half of the recorded extinctions have
occurred on continents (second half in oceans), primary
due to land use change, species introductions, and
increasingly climate change, indicating that biodiversity
is now broadly at risk throughout the planet. A safe
planetary boundary is proposed on the level of 10
E/MSY, but the actual situation is from 100 to 1000
E/MSY and it is indicating an urgent need to radically
reduce biodiversity loss rates.
Loses
• Lost of one species of existing 1000 per
year (extinction)
PLANETARY BOUNDARIES FOR HUMANITY