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Over the past 50 years, a large number of development initiatives have addressed the diverse social and ecological challenges in the Sahel, often focusing on a single entry point or action, resulting in only a limited degree of success. Within the last decade, the international development discourse has evolved to incorporate resilience thinking as a way to address more complex challenges. However, concrete examples as to how to operationalize resilience thinking are lacking. The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative (GGW), a pan-African program with a strong reforestation focus, is the latest and most ambitious of these development programs to date. The GGW represents an ideal opportunity to apply resilience thinking at a large scale, but in order to do so, it must intelligently gather and centralize pre-existing interdisciplinary knowledge, generate new knowledge, and integrate knowledge systems to appropriately navigate future uncertainties of the diverse social-ecological systems along its path. Herein, after a brief description of large-scale reforestation history in the Sahara and Sahel and the conceptual evolution of the GGW, we propose a transdisciplinary research framework with resilience thinking at its core. It includes analysis of complex social-ecological systems, their temporal and spatial cross-scale interactions, and outcomes focused on the supply of abundant, diverse, equitable, and durable ecosystem services to support livelihoods in the region. If the research areas that comprise the framework were to be properly addressed, they could conceivably guide GGW actions in a way that would contribute to desirable future pathways.

An ecosystem service is a benefit derived by humanity that can be traced back to an ecological process. Although ecosystem services related to surface water have been thoroughly described, the relationship between atmospheric water and ecosystem services has been mostly neglected, and perhaps misunderstood. Recent advances in land-atmosphere modeling have revealed the importance of terrestrial ecosystems for moisture recycling. In this paper, we analyze the extent to which vegetation sustains the supply of atmospheric moisture and precipitation for downwind beneficiaries, globally. We simulate land-surface evaporation with a global hydrology model and track changes to moisture recycling using an atmospheric moisture budget model, and we define vegetation-regulated moisture recycling as the difference in moisture recycling between current vegetation and a hypothetical desert world. Our results show that nearly a fifth of annual average precipitation falling on land is from vegetation-regulated moisture recycling, but the global variability is large, with many places receiving nearly half their precipitation from this ecosystem service. The largest potential impacts for changes to this ecosystem service are land-use changes across temperate regions in North America and Russia. Likewise, in semi-arid regions reliant on rainfed agricultural production, land-use change that even modestly reduces evaporation and subsequent precipitation, could significantly affect human well-being. We also present a regional case study in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, where we identify the specific moisture recycling ecosystem services associated with the vegetation in Mato Grosso. We find that Mato Grosso vegetation regulates some internal precipitation, with a diffuse region of benefit downwind, primarily to the south and east, including the La Plata River basin and the megacities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. We synthesize our global and regional results into a generalized framework for describing moisture recycling as an ecosystem service. We conclude that future work ought to disentangle whether and how this vegetation-regulated moisture recycling interacts with other ecosystem services, so that trade-offs can be assessed in a comprehensive and sustainable manner.

The food system is a major driver of climate change, changes in land use, depletion of freshwater resources, and pollution of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems through excessive nitrogen and phosphorus inputs. Here we show that between 2010 and 2050, as a result of expected changes in population and income levels, the environmental effects of the food system could increase by 50–90% in the absence of technological changes and dedicated mitigation measures, reaching levels that are beyond the planetary boundaries that define a safe operating space for humanity. We analyse several options for reducing the environmental effects of the food system, including dietary changes towards healthier, more plant-based diets, improvements in technologies and management, and reductions in food loss and waste. We find that no single measure is enough to keep these effects within all planetary boundaries simultaneously, and that a synergistic combination of measures will be needed to sufficiently mitigate the projected increase in environmental pressures. A global model finds that the environmental impacts of the food system could increase by 60–90% by 2050, and that dietary changes, improvements in technologies and management, and reductions in food loss and waste will all be needed to mitigate these impacts.

Urbanization is a global process that has taken billions of people from the rural countryside to concentrated urban centers, adding pressure to existing water resources. Many cities are specifically reliant on renewable freshwater regularly refilled by precipitation, rather than fossil groundwater or desalination. A precipitationshed can be considered the \"watershed of the sky\" and identifies the origin of precipitation falling in a given region. In this paper, we use this concept to determine the sources of precipitation that supply renewable water in the watersheds of the largest cities of the world. We quantify the sources of precipitation for 29 megacities and analyze their differences between dry and wet years. Our results reveal that 19 of 29 megacities depend for more than a third of their water supply on evaporation from land. We also show that for many of the megacities, the terrestrial dependence is higher in dry years. This high dependence on terrestrial evaporation for their precipitation exposes these cities to potential land-use change that could reduce the evaporation that generates precipitation. Combining indicators of water stress, moisture recycling exposure, economic capacity, vegetation-regulated evaporation, land-use change, and dry-season moisture recycling sensitivity reveals four highly vulnerable megacities (Karachi, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Chongqing). A further six megacities were found to have medium vulnerability with regard to their water supply. We conclude that understanding how upwind landscapes affect downwind municipal water resources could be a key component for understanding the complexity of urban water security.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality— of rising system-wide turbulence—calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations.

Plant-based alternatives (PBAs) are increasingly becoming part of diets. Here, we investigate the environmental, nutritional, and economic implications of replacing animal-source foods (ASFs) with PBAs or whole foods (WFs) in the Swedish diet. Utilising two functional units (mass and energy), we model vegan, vegetarian, and flexitarian scenarios, each based on PBAs or WFs. Our results demonstrate that PBA-rich diets substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions (30–52%), land use (20–45%), and freshwater use (14–27%), with the vegan diet showing the highest reduction potential. We observe comparable environmental benefits when ASFs are replaced with WFs, underscoring the need to reduce ASF consumption. PBA scenarios meet most Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, except for vitamin B12, vitamin D and selenium, while enhancing iron, magnesium, folate, and fibre supply and decreasing saturated fat. Daily food expenditure slightly increases in the PBA scenarios (3–5%) and decreases in the WF scenarios (4–17%), with PBA diets being 10–20% more expensive than WF diets. Here we show, that replacing ASFs with PBAs can reduce the environmental impact of current Swedish diets while meeting most nutritional recommendations, but slightly increases food expenditure. We recommend prioritising ASF reduction and diversifying WFs and healthier PBAs to accommodate diverse consumer preferences during dietary transitions. The authors found that replacing animal source foods with plant-based alternatives would lead to substantial reductions in environmental impacts, while meeting most nutrition recommendations and being cost-competitive with the current average Swedish diet.

Food lies at the heart of both health and sustainability challenges. We use a social-ecological framework to illustrate how major changes to the volume, nutrition and safety of food systems between 1961 and today impact health and sustainability. These changes have almost halved undernutrition while doubling the proportion who are overweight. They have also resulted in reduced resilience of the biosphere, pushing four out of six analysed planetary boundaries across the safe operating space of the biosphere. Our analysis further illustrates that consumers and producers have become more distant from one another, with substantial power consolidated within a small group of key actors. Solutions include a shift from a volume-focused production system to focus on quality, nutrition, resource use efficiency, and reduced antimicrobial use. To achieve this, we need to rewire food systems in ways that enhance transparency between producers and consumers, mobilize key actors to become biosphere stewards, and re-connect people to the biosphere.

The global context has shifted dramatically since publication of the first EAT–Lancet Commission in 2019, with increased geopolitical instability, soaring food prices, and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and creating new challenges. However, food systems remain squarely centred at the nexus of food security, human health, environmental sustainability, social justice, and the resilience of nations. Actions on food systems strongly impact the lives and wellbeing of all and are necessary to progress towards goals highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Although current food systems have largely kept pace with population growth, ensuring sufficient caloric intake for many, they are the single most influential driver of planetary boundary transgression. More than half of the world's population struggles to access healthy diets, leading to devastating consequences for public health, social equity, and the environment. Although hunger has declined in some regions, recent increases linked to expanding conflicts and emergent climate change impacts have reversed this positive trend. Obesity rates continue to rise globally, and the pressure exerted by food systems on planetary boundaries shows no signs of abating. In this moment of increasing instability, food systems still offer an unprecedented opportunity to build the resilience of environmental, health, economic, and social systems, and are uniquely placed to enhance human wellbeing while also contributing to Earth-system stability. This updated analysis builds upon the 2019 EAT–Lancet Commission, expanding its scope and strengthening its evidence base. The first Commission defined food group ranges for a healthy diet and identified the food systems' share of planetary boundaries. In this Commission, we add an analysis of the social foundations for a just food system, and incorporate new data and perspectives on distributive, representational, and recognitional justice, providing a global overview on equity in food systems. Substantial improvements in modelling capacity and data analysis allow for the use of a multimodel ensemble to project potential outcomes of a transition to healthy and sustainable food systems. The planetary health diet (PHD) remains a cornerstone of our recommendations and can be seen as a framework within which diverse and culturally appropriate diets can exist. Robust updated evidence reinforces a strong association with improved health outcomes, large reductions in all-cause mortality, and a substantial decline in the incidence of major diet-related chronic diseases. The reference PHD emphasises a balanced dietary pattern that is predominantly plant-based, with moderate inclusion of animal-sourced foods and minimal consumption of added sugars, saturated fats, and salt. Successful implementation of the PHD requires careful consideration of cultural contexts and the promotion of culturally appropriate and sustainable dietary traditions. This diversity of contexts, bounded by the PHD's reference values, represents substantial flexibility and choice across cultures, geographies, and individual preferences. However, when confronted by climate, biodiversity, health, and justice crises, transformation will require urgent and meaningful changes in our individual and collective behaviours and our culture of unhealthy, unjust, and unsustainable food production and consumption. For the first time, we quantify the global food systems' share of all nine planetary boundaries. These food system boundaries confirm that food is the single largest cause of planetary boundary transgressions, driving the transgression of five of the six breached boundaries. In addition, food systems exert a notable impact on the transgressed climate boundary and on the ocean acidification boundary. Unsustainable land conversion, particularly deforestation, remains a major driver of biodiversity loss and climate change, highlighting the need for zero conversion of all remaining intact ecosystems. Food systems account for the near totality of nitrogen and phosphorus boundary transgression, emphasising the improvements needed in nutrient management, efficient nutrient redistribution, and circular nutrient systems. The massive use of novel entities in food production, processing, and packaging (ranging from plastics to pesticides) remains a major concern but is alarmingly understudied. Our assessment of justice integrates three dimensions—distributive, representational, and recognitional—within a human rights framing that includes the rights to food, a healthy environment, and decent work. Analyses reveal important inequities in access to healthy diets, decent work conditions, and healthy environments, disproportionately affecting marginalised groups in low-income regions. We therefore propose nine social foundations that enable these rights to be met, and are able to assess the global status of six. Enabling access to, affordability of, and demand for healthy diets is paramount. Equally crucial is the right to live and work within a non-toxic environment and a stable climate system, as we recognise the profound impact of environmental degradation on human health and wellbeing. Furthermore, a living wage and meaningful representation would allow individuals to actively participate in building healthy, sustainable, and just food systems. However, nearly half of the world's population falls below these social foundations, undermining their ability to meet basic human rights. At the same time, the dietary patterns of most (6·9 billion people) of the world exert pressures that threaten further planetary boundary transgression. The destabilising effect of unhealthy overconsumption on the Earth's systems highlights the importance of viewing healthy diets not just as a human right, but also as a shared responsibility.

1. Unhealthy and unsustainably produced food poses a global risk to people and the planet. More than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume an unhealthy diet that contributes to premature death and morbidity. Moreover, global food production is the largest pressure caused by humans on Earth, threatening local ecosystems and the stability of the Earth system. 2. Current dietary trends, combined with projected population growth to about 10 billion by 2050, will exacerbate risks to people and planet. The global burden of non-communicable diseases is predicted to worsen and the effects of food production on greenhouse-gas emissions, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, biodiversity loss, and water and land use will reduce the stability of the Earth system. 3. Transformation to healthy diets from sustainable food systems is necessary to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, and scientific targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production are needed to guide a Great Food Transformation. 4. Healthy diets have an appropriate caloric intake and consist of a diversity of plant-based foods, low amounts of animal source foods, unsaturated rather than saturated fats, and small amounts of refined grains, highly processed foods, and added sugars. 5. Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts, including a greater than 50% reduction in global consumption of unhealthy foods, such as red meat and sugar, and a greater than 100% increase in consumption of healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. However, the changes needed differ greatly by region. 6. Dietary changes from current diets to healthy diets are likely to substantially benefit human health, averting about 10·8–11·6 million deaths per year, a reduction of 19·0–23·6%. 7. With food production causing major global environmental risks, sustainable food production needs to operate within the safe operating space for food systems at all scales on Earth. Therefore, sustainable food production for about 10 billion people should use no additional land, safeguard existing biodiversity, reduce consumptive water use and manage water responsibly, substantially reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, produce zero carbon dioxide emissions, and cause no further increase in methane and nitrous oxide emissions. 8. Transformation to sustainable food production by 2050 will require at least a 75% reduction of yield gaps, global redistribution of nitrogen and phosphorus fertiliser use, recycling of phosphorus, radical improvements in efficiency of fertiliser and water use, rapid implementation of agricultural mitigation options to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, adoption of land management practices that shift agriculture from a carbon source to sink, and a fundamental shift in production priorities. 9. The scientific targets for healthy diets from sustainable food systems are intertwined with all UN Sustainable Development Goals. For example, achieving these targets will depend on providing high-quality primary health care that integrates family planning and education on healthy diets. These targets and the Sustainable Development Goals on freshwater, climate, land, oceans, and biodiversity will be achieved through strong commitment to global partnerships and actions. 10. Achieving healthy diets from sustainable food systems for everyone will require substantial shifts towards healthy dietary patterns, large reductions in food losses and waste, and major improvements in food production practices. This universal goal for all humans is within reach but will require adoption of scientific targets by all sectors to stimulate a range of actions from individuals and organisations working in all sectors and at all scales.