Literature Review on Planetary Boundaries

This literature review explores the concept of planetary boundaries and its role in achieving sustainable development. It discusses the framework of planetary boundaries, focusing on climate change and biosphere integrity. The review also examines the challenges and opportunities in attaining sustainable development within the planetary boundaries. The findings highlight the need for a shift towards sustainable technologies and global cooperation.

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Ecology and Sustainability

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Contents
Assignment 2: What is Sustainability Development?..................................................................................3
Assignment 3: a Literature review on Planetary Boundaries.......................................................................9
Assignment 4: Case study: A Case Study on the Sustainable Development Indicators of Water Resources
in Taiwan...................................................................................................................................................17

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Assignment 2: What is Sustainability Development?
Introduction
Sustainability development is an expansion that helps in gathering the requirement of today,
exclusive of negotiating the capability of further generations to assemble their desires. The
notion of sustainable development can be understood in a number of ways, but at its core is a
strategy to improvement that demonstrates to balance various and frequently challenging,
requires against an consciousness of the social, economic boundaries and environmental issue
that the organization face as a society. Sustainable development is handling a subtle balance
between the human desires to get better lifestyles and feeling of well-being on one hand, and
protecting natural resources and ecosystem, on which the current population and future
generation depend. By taking consideration of above discussion, it can be stated that the right
description of Sustainable development is the approach that has a main focus on gathering the
requirements of the present without conciliating aptitude of further generations to meet their
needs. There are believed of some people that the notion of sustainable development must
involve preserving the environment for other species along for people.
Context Setting – Problem Statement
For most of the last couple of 100 years, the environment has been mainly observed as external
to humanity, with little specific areas. Environmental problems were seen majorly as local. On
the huge, the bonding between people and the environment was visualized as a triumph of
humanity over nature. The notion of sustainable expansion is the result of developing an
awareness of the worldwide associations between increasing environmental issues and socio-
economic issues to do with inequality and poverty. It firmly connects with issues of

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environmental and socio-economic. The problems related to the environment threat to the health
and lives of people (Hopwood, Mellor and O'Brien, 2005). The questions arise by sustainable
development regarding the post-war claim, that controls mainstream economic policy, that the
worldwide prosperity can be attained by developed global trade and industry. Along with with
that the lack of clarity regarding the concept of sustainability comprises a number of issues for
researchers as it can hamper handling the procedure of the concept, develop contradictory
discourses on the subject, and can influence the validity of the studies.
Question: what is the meaning of sustainable development as a set of social environmental
criteria or qualities in human action?
Explore the various understandings or development of the notion of sustainable
development
According to Mebratu, (1998), sustainability is the term that helps entities to make the aim for
further growth. There are so many scholars and professionals claim that a system is sustainable
since it has a number of aims. However, in such case, an ordinary feature is their suggestion to
social, environmental and economic aims that definite human actions intended to reach. For a
specific reason, sustainability is considered as an idealization of the bonding between society and
nature inside systems of references. It was apparent from these statements that sustainability is
related to the human actions that directly derive from determined purposes. For such reason, it
shall be noted that this utilization shows a teleological sense of the notion of sustainability.
According to Hopwood, Mellor and O'Brien, (2005), sustainable development is confusing
concept because it has different interpretations and for getting an effective knowledge regarding
the same, it is vital to take a note of sense with mapping methodology on the basis of combining

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environmental and socioeconomic issues. In his broadly utilized arrangement of natural
perspectives, from solid ecocentric to solid technocentric, called attention to that these frequently
join with financial perspectives so that eccentric tend towards social and monetary value and
redistribution while technocentrics are bound to help the monetary and political the present state
of affairs. Much of the time the connecting of natural and social concerns depends on an ethical
or thoughtful standpoint as opposed to seeing the two as tangibly and socially related and
indivisible. Others have additionally sketched out helpful methods for dissecting natural
concerns; in any case, there has been less effort in mapping the plentiful point of view on
reasonable improvement. To provide a perspective on the patterns inside the sustainable
development, unique mapping can be extended by thinking about ecological and financial
perspectives on two separate axes (Salas‐Zapata and Ortiz‐Muñoz, 2019).
On the other hand, there are many people that claim that sustainable development confronts the
enhanced integration of the globe in an industrialist economy controlled by multinationals. The
ambiguity permits governments and business to be in the context of sustainability without any
basic confronts to their present course. By taking consideration of Brundtland’s support for
instant development, it allows business and government to be in favour of sustainability without
any basic confronts to their present course. Reformers perceive that the legislature has a key job
in moving towards maintainable improvement as a business will require pushing, and now and
again controlling, assessments and endowments changing, focusing of research and scattering of
data. Most reformers additionally accept that there will be a change of the political framework to
expand the majority rules system and interest (Murray and King, 2012).

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Source: (Hopwood, Mellor and O'Brien, 2005).
Those who receive a transformative loom that grabs both ecological and social investigations
spread range of a variety of viewpoint although all share the sight that the increasing
emergencies in the world and society are unified and that the social and ecological frameworks
chance breakdown on the off chance that extreme change does not happen. A few, for example,
grassroots natural equity and indigenous ecological developments, may not make the most of a
similar vocabulary of economic improvement as utilized in official and scholastic circles yet are
tending to the issues of how to live inside the earth without extraordinary disparity or destitution.
The point of view of transformations towards the issues is different from other as they find out
the root cause of problems that help out them to figure out the reason behind raising the issue.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that the point of view of many researchers on
sustainability development is different but all researchers of sustainable development agree for
demanding the change in the society, although there is a number of debates as to the
characteristics of sustainable development, the amendments necessary and the actors for these

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amendments. There is no single united philosophy of sustainable development. It has been
concluded with the help of the various researchers on the selected topic that the sustainable
development raises confusion as people use the similar kind of words to mean a huge deviation
of perceptions of the aims, as in a number of political issues, the perception of one member is to
be different for another. Reformers perceive that the legislature has a major job in affecting
towards sustainable development as commerce will require approaching motivation for attaining
the sustainable development within the entity.

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Reference list
Hopwood, B., Mellor, M. and O'Brien, G., (2005) Sustainable development: mapping different
approaches. Sustainable development, 13(1), pp.38-52.
Mebratu, D., (1998) Sustainability and sustainable development: historical and conceptual
review. Environmental impact assessment review, 18(6), pp.493-520.
Murray, J. and King, D., (2012) Climate policy: Oil's tipping point has
passed. Nature, 481(7382), p.433.
Salas‐Zapata, W.A. and Ortiz‐Muñoz, S.M., (2019) Analysis of meanings of the concept of
sustainability. Sustainable Developm
ent, 27(1), pp.153-161.

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Assignment 3: a Literature review on Planetary Boundaries
Introduction
The framework of planetary boundaries elaborates a secure functioning space for humankind
relied on the inherent biophysical procedures that handle the steadiness of the Earth System. The
main aim of this assignment is to highlight the factors that impact of a sustainable environment
for which, the focal point on the reinforcement biophysical science, based on targeted input from
specific research communities and on specific technical go forward over past 5 years (Whiteman,
Walker and Perego, 2013). There are a number of boundaries that have a two-tier approach,
demonstrating the significance of cross-scale interactions and the upper-level heterogeneity of
the procedures that highlight the boundaries. The discussion will be made two major boundaries
such as climate change and biosphere integrity. Both have the impending on its own to force the
system of the earth into a new state in which they can be persistently and substantially
transgressed. A preventive principle defines that human societies would be risky to drive the
system of earth substantially away from a Holocene-like condition. A progressing route away
from the Holocene could guide, with a disturbingly lofty possibility, one that is likely to be much
fewer generous to the growth of human societies (Steffen, Broadgate, Deutsch, Gaffney and
Ludwig, 2015).
Context and problem
As a notion, sustainable development materialized in response to developing evidence of
detrimental human impact on ecological systems. Towards the ending of the 20th century, it has
become gradually clearer that conventional development and economic growth happens in
performance with the destruction of ecological and global social inequality. As consequences,

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sustainable forms of development are required for an economically balanced planet to convert
into reality. There is a problem with the situation in which ecological system can be seen as
under stress on the earth. Humanity depends on the removal and utilization of huge quantities of
resources and ever developing quantities to handle current ways of life.
Question 1: How chosen model of planetary boundaries can be helpful in attaining sustainable
development?
Framework or model
It has been found that anthropogenic pressures on the Earth System have attained a extent where
unexpected worldwide ecological amendment can no longer be disqualified. The organization
proposes a new approach to worldwide sustainability in which the sustainable organization
expected from people to operate safely. Planetary boundaries can be harmful because of the risk
of crossing thresholds that will be generated non-linear to planetary-scale systems. It has been
estimated that humanity has transgressed three planetary boundaries such as biodiversity loss,
climate change and amendments to the global nitrogen cycle (Biermann, 2012). The nature of
planetary boundaries are co-dependent, as misbehaving one can both shift the position of, or
outcome in transgressing, another boundary (Rockström, et. al., 2009).
With the help of the selected framework, it would be easy to understand the great knowledge
regarding planetary boundaries as this approach has three branches of scientific inquiry. The first
addresses the level of individual achievement in the term of the capacity of the Earth to sustain it,
a noteworthy feature of the ecological economies agenda of research. The second one is the way
of understanding required Earth System processes, involving human actions. The last is the

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framework of resilience and its associations to complex dynamics and self-governance of living
systems that highlight basins of attraction and its effect (Steffen et. al., 2015).
Source: (Steffen, et. al., 2015).
Humanity can resemble the boundaries for worldwide freshwater use, ocean acidification,
modify in land use and intervention with the worldwide phosphorus cycle. The examination
proposed a suggestion that three systems like climate change, interference with the nitrogen
cycle and rate of biodiversity loss (ScHleSinger, 2009). It is necessary to keep focus on the
sustainable development and with the support of this framework, the organize variables are the
extent of specific loss and the rate on which nitrogen can be removed from the atmosphere and
diverted to regenerate nitrogen for the human use (Murphy and Hall, 2011). It has been found
that the modern agriculture is a main reason of environmental pollution, involving large-extent

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nitrogen and phosphorus –induced environmental change. At the planetary scale, the
supplementary amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus generated by humans are now so huge that
they deliberately bother the worldwide cycles of these two vital elements.
For the support of the definitions of sustainable development, it has been cleared that the role of
the planetary boundaries is huge in developing outline a safe operating space for humanity that
handles a small likelihood of haring the life support system on Earth to such as level that they no
longer are effective to sustain economic development and human improvement (Maslin and
Lewis, 2015). However, it has cleared from the paper that planetary boundaries do not cover a
cap on human development. Despite the fact, they offer a safe space for growth, innovation and
development in the chase of human prosperity in a developing populated and wealthy world. The
sustainable development trajectory defines the planetary boundaries in a new manner: not
through an open issue for resource, nor by reduction of the high level of incomes (Lövbrand, et.
al., 2015). It has been discussed that the sustainable development is necessary for the better
living system and the role of planetary boundaries is huge in providing a right track for the
business (Rockström, et. al., 2009). It has been found that the world must live within the
planetary boundaries by the arrangement of new sustainable technologies and the latest
worldwide rules of the game. Most important, the organization need a quick technological
overhaul in all areas of the global to make sure that all countries can involve in the benefit for
21st-century technology without hampering the planet at the same time (Steffen et. al., 2015).
Along with that, there are number of advantages for humans that in a straight manner in the
context of biodiversity, involving hygiene food and water. On the other hand, it has been found
that the biodiversity loss comes with a price (Malm and Hornborg, 2014).
Conclusion

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It has been concluded from the above discussion that the role of the planetary boundaries in
sustainable development is vast as it facilitates in protecting the upper level of variance in GDP
growth rates in a number of countries, for example, Southern Europe is in deep monetary
turndown, and on the other hand, Northern Europe is not. Along with initial countries, most in
East Asia are upgrading hastily, whereas the poorer regions of Africa are in disarray. The major
loom of sustainable development is to improve the planetary boundaries framework. This paper
has demonstrated the model with the help of the combination and assessment of the scientific
information of the inherent biophysical process that controls the constancy of the system of the
earth. The protective approach is based on the handle of a Holocene-like state of the Earth
system.

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Reference list
Biermann, F., (2012) Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring the
links. Ecological Economics, 81, pp.4-9.
Lövbrand, E., Beck, S., Chilvers, J., Forsyth, T., Hedrén, J., Hulme, M., Lidskog, R. and
Vasileiadou, E., (2015) Who speaks for the future of Earth? How critical social science can
extend the conversation on the Anthropocene. Global Environmental Change, 32, pp.211-218.
Malm, A. and Hornborg, A., (2014) The geology of mankind? A critique of the Anthropocene
narrative. The Anthropocene Review, 1(1), pp.62-69.
Maslin, M.A. and Lewis, S.L., (2015) Anthropocene: Earth System, geological, philosophical
and political paradigm shifts. The Anthropocene Review, 2(2), pp.108-116.
Murphy, D.J. and Hall, C.A., (2011) Energy return on investment, peak oil, and the end of
economic growth. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1219(1), pp.52-72.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin III, F.S., Lambin, E.F., Lenton, T.M.,
Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H.J. and Nykvist, B., (2009) A safe operating space for
humanity. nature, 461(7263), p.472.
Rockström, J., Steffen, W.L., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin III, F.S., Lambin, E., Lenton, T.M.,
Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H.J. and Nykvist, B., (2009) Planetary boundaries:
exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and society.
ScHleSinger, W.H., (2009) Planetary boundaries. Nature, 461, pp.472-475.

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Steffen, W., Broadgate, W., Deutsch, L., Gaffney, O. and Ludwig, C., (2015) The trajectory of
the Anthropocene: the great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2(1), pp.81-98.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S.E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E.M., Biggs, R.,
Carpenter, S.R., De Vries, W., De Wit, C.A. and Folke, C., (2015) Planetary boundaries:
Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347(6223), p.1259855.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S.E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E.M., Biggs, R.,
Carpenter, S.R., De Vries, W., De Wit, C.A. and Folke, C., (2015) Planetary boundaries:
Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347(6223), p.1259855.
Whiteman, G., Walker, B. and Perego, P., (2013) Planetary boundaries: Ecological foundations
for corporate sustainability. Journal of Management Studies, 50(2), pp.307-336.

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Assignment 4: Case study: A Case Study on the Sustainable Development Indicators of
Water Resources in Taiwan
Introduction
This essay elaborates the case study of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) system of
water resource in Taiwan. The importance of sustainable development in the present world keeps
a huge role as it helps in gathering the wants of today, without co-operating the requirement of
tomorrow. This refers that people cannot constant using ongoing levels of resources because this
would not leave enough for further generations. Reducing and stabilizing carbon emissions is
major to living within environmental limits (Emas, 2015). This paper will discuss the case study
of sustainable development for the purpose of application of the above mentioned definition. The
study for the case study is based on the Driving Force State Response Framework, which was
made by the UN Commission on sustainable development. The used framework in the case study
has four dimensions such as social, environmental, institutional and economical. The discussion
about the result of the case study has been described under the case study in which the pointer
scores for the strength of use of groundwater. To reduce agriculture water use and ground water
use of water supply is much required to develop the sustainability of water resources in Taiwan.
Context setting
The description of sustainable development has demonstrated the requirements of the nearby
without settlement the potential needs for the future. According to WCED, sustainable
development focuses on the growth of economic with the prevention of environmental quality.
The core of this development is a definite bonding between human activities and the natural

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world. There is a number of observers that have to believe in participatory democracy is a
precondition for attaining sustainable development.
Definition of sustainable development
As per the bruntlant commission, the sustainable development is an effort to associate the
concern of economic development along with environmental stability. The concept of sustainable
development objectives to handle economic advancement and development at the time of
preventing the long term value of the environment; it gives a framework for the incorporation of
environmental policies and development strategies (Singla, Sethi and Ahuja, 2018). However, it
has been argued by scholars that there is no requirement of the trade-off between environmental
sustainability and economic development.
Frame Work of Water Resources Sustainable Development Indicators
The case study has applied the structure and categorization of water resources sustainable
development indicators entail of economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions.
Each dimension has its own table for describing the indicators and contributors to water
sustainable development. The case study has proposed 18 indicators which are classified in 3
assignment categories. This framework would be helpful for the essay to apply on making the
good impact of sustainable development of water resources (Shieh and Wang, 2008).

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Figure: Environmental Dimensions
Source: (Shieh and Wang, 2008).
Figure: Economic Dimensions

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Source: (Shieh and Wang, 2008).
Figure: Social Dimensions
Source: (Shieh and Wang, 2008).
Figure: Institutional dimension
Source: (Shieh and Wang, 2008).

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Theory of sustainable development
There are three kinds of sustainable theory in which the strong sustainability theory will be
suitable for the essay. It is because strong sustainability shows that natural capital cannot be seen
as a simple stock of resources. On the other hand the natural system entails the complex system
involving a biotic factors that communicate in the process that decide the capacity of an
ecosystem to offer human society directly with huge position of services and functions (Chang,
Wang, and Tsai, 2016). Majorly, government organizations of different countries are categorized
into departments and sectoral ministries. These tasks quite well until the whole system come
across something in an adequate manner and highly incorporated in nature, like sustainable
development. In practice, sustainable development needs the integration of environmental, social
and economic objectives across sectors. Consequently, development needs the reduction of
fragmentation; that is, social, economic and economic distress should be integrated into the
context of decision-making processes for the purpose of moving towards development (Brack, et.
al., 2017).
Application
In the context of the application of the suggested framework that is Water resource sustainable
development, it shall be noted that it is more suitable for the present study. With the help of this
framework, the case study would be able to move towards water sustainable development
through which the country can be benefitted in an adequate manner (Boeuf and Fritsch, 2016).
As it is mentioned in the part of the definition, the sustainable development is the term of
fulfilling the present needs without compromising the potential requirements. Same goes with
the case study because water resource framework will be helpful in maintaining the reduction of

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the excess and unnecessary use of water (Sun, Wang, Liu, Cai, Wu, Geng and Xu, 2016). This
application of the framework in the current study is not only to be an orientation for professional
and government but also has a significant role in developing strategy and broadcast of public
education. That is why the association of huge information of water resource with the data of
experts and scholars for the aim of forming display coordination on policy education and
learning promotion has to turn out to be a vital task. This case study has improved the structure
of indicators to analyze the ongoing growth position of water resources (Brown, et. al., 2015).
Water resource sustainable development has a scope of indicators which is complex and broad,
which can influence social, economic, environmental and institutional dimensions. This
framework is classified into four dimensions such as social, economic, institutional and
environmental. Furthermore, the case study can apply this framework by taking consideration of
watershed conservation and management, diverse use and improvement of water resources,
groundwater conservation and management, drought and flood mitigation and promotion of
water conservation measures.
The different dimensions of the framework would be helpful in attaining the water resource
framework. The assessment category of each dimension would be different from each other
which can enhance the use of this framework for further use. For environment dimension, the
present case study use development and management of river environment management and
Groundwater Conservation and Management. It has some dynamic power indicators such as
point source pollution and land use change rate. Assessment category for economic dimension is
allocation and Management of Water Resources and Diverse Use and Development of Water
Resources. On the other hand, the assessment category for the third dimension would be Drought
and Flood Mitigation and Promotion of Water Conservation Measures. Institutional dimension

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for the fourth dimension will be Technology R&D of Water Resources and Water Act and
Related Regulations (Ramos, Caeiro, Van Hoof, Lozano, Huisingh and Ceulemans, 2015).
This application of the framework is helpful for attainingsustainable development because these
dimensions facilitate in reducing excessive use of factors that hamper the environment. The main
term of sustainable development is to keep the focus on the present needs and these dimensions
are enough to provide use of the environment in a significant manner. Sustainability is
considered as an idealization of the bonding between society and nature inside systems of
references. It was apparent from these statements that sustainability is related to the human
actions that directly derive from the determined purpose (Assembly, 2015).
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that sustainability development provides
significant relation between nature and society. The case study of water resource development
has been given in the essay that demonstrated the outcomes of the study in the form of indicator
scores for strength of groundwater use, the leakage rate of water supply pipelines and water use
in agriculture. In order to decrease the same factors, it is required to develop sustainability of
water resources. The conclusion can be drawn that the water sustainable approach would be
helpful in providing better use of water in coming years that would be helpful for making
security in future of the use of water. It has been found that the reduction of unnecessary water
use can enhance the status of driving-force indicators needs.

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Reference list
Assembly, G., (2015) Sustainable development goals. SDGs), Transforming our world:
the, 2030.
Boeuf, B. and Fritsch, O., (2016) Studying the implementation of the Water Framework
Directive in Europe: a meta-analysis of 89 journal articles. Ecology and Society, 21(2).
Brack, W., Dulio, V., Ågerstrand, M., Allan, I., Altenburger, R., Brinkmann, M., Bunke, D.,
Burgess, R.M., Cousins, I., Escher, B.I. and Hernández, F.J., (2017) Towards the review of the
European Union Water Framework Directive: recommendations for more efficient assessment
and management of chemical contamination in European surface water resources. Science of the
Total Environment, 576, pp.720-737.
Brown, C.M., Lund, J.R., Cai, X., Reed, P.M., Zagona, E.A., Ostfeld, A., Hall, J., Characklis,
G.W., Yu, W. and Brekke, L., (2015) The future of water resources systems analysis: Toward a
scientific framework for sustainable water management. Water resources research, 51(8),
pp.6110-6124.
Chang, F.J., Wang, Y.C. and Tsai, W.P., (2016) Modelling intelligent water resources allocation
for multi-users. Water resources management, 30(4), pp.1395-1413.
Emas, R., (2015) The concept of sustainable development: definition and defining
principles. Brief for GSDR, pp.1-3.
Ramos, T.B., Caeiro, S., Van Hoof, B., Lozano, R., Huisingh, D. and Ceulemans, K., (2015)
Experiences from the implementation of sustainable development in higher education

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institutions: Environmental Management for Sustainable Universities. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 106, pp.3-10.
Shieh, H.J. and Wang, Y.M., (2009) A Case Study on the Sustainable Development Indicators of
Water Resources in Taiwan.
Singla, A., Sethi, A.P.S. and Ahuja, I.S., (2018) A study of transitions between technology push
and demand pull strategies for accomplishing sustainable development in manufacturing
industries. World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, 15(4), pp.302-
312.
Sun, S., Wang, Y., Liu, J., Cai, H., Wu, P., Geng, Q. and Xu, L., (2016) Sustainability
assessment of regional water resources under the DPSIR framework. Journal of Hydrology, 532,
pp.140-148.