Abstract

In this study the totality of changes on planet Earth, including all human interventions and alterations, is considered as constituting global change, a concept which is therefore broader than the concept of global environmental change. The latter only refers to the human-induced biophysical changes in the dynamics of the Earth system, while global change refers to changes in both the biophysical and the human system. In practice, the concept of global environmental change is a general umbrella term for a whole range of mutually dependent global environmental problems. Within the context of this research programme global change is, in contrast to earlier studies, considered from an integrated perspective. In this study the starting point is to consider the common causes, mechanisms and impacts of a number of coherent themes, functions and scales, and to translate this in terms of Pressure, State, Impact and Response (P-S-I-R approach). This is more in line with the universal principle of approaching environmentally related problems, which assumes that many of those problems are generic in nature.