The Anthropocene as a Multi-Level Stability Landscape Regimes, Transitions, and Reorganization of the Human–Earth System

Understanding the evolution of the human–Earth system over decadal-to-centennial timescales remains a central challenge in Earth system science. The Anthropocene is commonly described using trajectories, tipping elements, and scenario pathways, which capture non-linear dynamics but do not provide a unified representation of regime structure and transitions at planetary scale. Here we introduce a conceptual framework in which the human–Earth system is represented as evolving within a multi-level stability landscape. In this representation, attractor basins correspond to alternative global configurations of human–biosphere interaction, and the Anthropocene is interpreted as a domain containing multiple regimes rather than a single trajectory. The landscape is hierarchically organized, with nested basins associated with distinct characteristic timescales. The existence of such a landscape at planetary scale is introduced as a working hypothesis and evaluated in terms of its explanatory coherence. Within this framework, regimes are classified as viable, degraded, or crisis states, and transitions between them are path-dependent, asymmetric, and partially irreversible. The framework also represents transitions beyond the Anthropocene domain as shifts to alternative basins characterized by different modes of human–biosphere coupling. By integrating hierarchical structure, transition asymmetry, and endogenous landscape evolution, the framework extends existing resilience and regime-shift approaches. It is conceptual and non-predictive, providing a structured representation of possible system configurations and their relationships rather than forecasting specific trajectories.