Nature and Water

In short: Land is only part of what the planet offers. Living nature (soils, forests, insects, oceans) and fresh water do work no economy could pay for: they make food possible, clean water and air, and keep the climate stable. Both are under heavy pressure, mostly from how we produce food. And unlike money, much of what is lost cannot simply be rebuilt.

The Question

Land per Person shows how much ground there is for each of us. This article asks what lives on that ground and flows through it: what does nature actually do for us, and how much of it is left?

What Nature Does for Us

Economists call it “ecosystem services”, but the list is simple:

• Food: about three quarters of the world’s food crops depend at least partly on pollinators such as bees.
• Fertile soil: a few centimetres of topsoil take centuries to form, and feed almost everything we eat.
• Clean water: forests and wetlands filter water and even out floods and droughts.
• A stable climate: land and oceans together absorb roughly half of the carbon dioxide we emit each year.
• Medicine and materials: many medicines started as plant or microbe compounds.

None of this appears on a bill, so it is easy to treat as free and endless.

How Much Pressure Is It Under?

• Wildlife: the WWF Living Planet Index reports an average decline of about 73% in monitored wildlife populations since 1970.
• Species: the IPBES global assessment (2019) estimated that around one million species are threatened with extinction.
• Land use: about half of the world’s habitable land is used for farming, most of it for grazing animals and growing their feed.
• Fresh water: farming uses about 70% of the fresh water people take from rivers, lakes and the ground. Around two billion people still lack safely managed drinking water at home.

Scientists have mapped nine “planetary boundaries”, the limits within which the Earth stays stable for human life. A 2023 study found six of the nine already crossed, including the ones for living nature and fresh water.

Why It Is Hard to Replace

Money can be borrowed and paid back. Much of nature cannot. An extinct species does not come back. Lost topsoil takes centuries to rebuild. An aquifer emptied over decades may refill only over thousands of years. Natural systems can also tip: past a certain point, a rainforest can dry out into savanna, or a lake can turn green and lifeless, and it does not simply return when pressure eases.

Examples

• Restoring works: where land is given back, nature often returns faster than expected. Europe’s forest area has grown for decades, and species such as beavers, wolves and white-tailed eagles have come back to many countries.
• Water running out: in parts of India, the Middle East and the western United States, groundwater is being pumped faster than rain can refill it, and farmers have to drill ever deeper.

The Human Side

Nature is not only useful. Time in green places lowers stress, and many people find meaning in the living world around them. When nature disappears close to home, people lose something that no product can replace. See Human needs in the Personal Guide.

Open Questions

• How can the value of nature count in decisions, without turning every forest into a price tag?
• Who should pay to restore what was damaged in the past?
• How much land could be given back to nature if diets changed? See Plant-Based Consumption.

Where Next

• Previous: Fair Globe Sharing
• Next: What Is Society For?
• Related: Land per Person, Climate Change, Fair Space Sharing

Sources

• WWF, Living Planet Report 2024
• IPBES, Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019)
• Richardson et al., “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries”, Science Advances (2023)
• FAO, AQUASTAT (water use by sector)
• WHO and UNICEF, Joint Monitoring Programme reports on drinking water
• Our World in Data, “Land use” (Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser)