Earth Viability Center, Inc

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The System Units and Flows

The Earth's dashboard and labsheets are available at different spatial scales and for different units of the Earth's life-support system. Focus can be on units (anatomy) or flows (physiology).

The Main Units

The main units are:

  • The Ocean
  • The Atmosphere
  • The Land Surface and Land Cover
  • The Biosphere
  • The Humansphere
  • The Technosphere

The Main Flows

  • The Water Cycle
  • The Oxygen Cycle
  • The Carbon Cycle
  • The Nitrogen Cycle
  • The Phosporous Cycle
  • Pollutants

Earth's Anatomy

There are many ways to subdived and structure Earth's units into regions and systems that can be considered individually as systems embedded in a larger environment.


Bioregions in 2020. The 846 terrestrial ecoregions of the Earth (Dinerstein et al. 2017) overlayed with Bioregions 2020 polygons. A finite number of ecoregions are contained within the perimeter of each bioregion, with the exception of mangroves which in some cases extend across one or more bioregions. From Burkart (2020).

The Ocean

The Atmosphere

The Land Surface and Land Cover

The Biosphere

The biosphere can be separated into a set fo different bioregions. Karl Burkart provides an overview of the global distribution of the major bioregions for 2020.

The Humansphere

The Technosphere

Earth's Physiology

...

Your Comments and Questions

Please, send us comments and input you might have on the system units and flows discussed here. Let us know if you have any questions.
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