Human systems colliding with natural ones.
10 topics · 12 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
Our Common Future
World Commission on Environment and Development · 1987
Defines sustainable development as meeting present needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet theirs, and argues environment and…
+3 more at this level
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment · 2005
Synthesises a four-year, 1,300-scientist assessment into the finding that roughly 60 percent of the ecosystem services examined are being degraded or…
+2 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
Factors of Soil Formation: A System of Quantitative Pedology
Hans Jenny · 1941
Recasts soil as the output of a function of climate, organisms, relief, parent material and time, giving pedology a quantitative framework instead of…
+4 more at this level
12 works
World Commission on Environment and Development
Defines sustainable development as meeting present needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet theirs, and argues environment and economic development cannot be treated as separate problems.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Society for Ecological Restoration Science & Policy Working Group
Defines ecological restoration as assisting the recovery of a degraded, damaged or destroyed ecosystem and sets out the attributes a restored ecosystem should exhibit, becoming the field's reference definition.
link checked 17 Sept 2026World Health Organization & UNEP
Reviews the global evidence on endocrine-disrupting chemicals and concludes exposure is a growing threat to human and wildlife health that routine chemical safety testing does not adequately capture.
link checked 17 Sept 2026World Health Organization
Sets stricter recommended limits for particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide after reviewing evidence that harm occurs at levels previously thought safe, resetting the benchmark national air quality standards are judged against.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Synthesises a four-year, 1,300-scientist assessment into the finding that roughly 60 percent of the ecosystem services examined are being degraded or used unsustainably, and frames nature's contributions to people as an accounting problem economies were ignoring.
link checked 17 Sept 2026IPBES
Estimates that around one million species face extinction, many within decades, and argues biodiversity loss and climate change are the same crisis of land and resource use viewed from two angles.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Concludes that land use and land-use change are both a major driver of climate change and one of the sectors most exposed to its effects, so land management and climate mitigation cannot be planned separately.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Hans Jenny
Recasts soil as the output of a function of climate, organisms, relief, parent material and time, giving pedology a quantitative framework instead of a purely descriptive one.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Compton J. Tucker
Derives the vegetation index — a simple ratio of red and near-infrared reflectance — that turned satellite imagery into a quantitative measure of plant health, still the basis of NDVI monitoring today.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Theo Colborn, Frederick S. vom Saal & Ana M. Soto
Surveys wildlife and laboratory evidence that chemicals mimicking or blocking hormones disrupt development at very low doses, arguing that toxicology's focus on high-dose cancer risk was missing a more pervasive kind of harm.
link checked 17 Sept 2026James N. Galloway, Frank J. Dentener, Douglas G. Capone et al.
Quantifies how far industrial fertiliser and fossil-fuel combustion have pushed the global nitrogen cycle past its natural range, and projects it will roughly double again by mid-century.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Jonathan A. Foley, Ruth DeFries, Gregory P. Asner et al.
Synthesises worldwide data to argue land-use change now rivals climate change as a driver of environmental change, degrading the ecosystem services that land itself depends on.
link checked 17 Sept 2026