Where the levels have to sit.
The reference page for the two levels the Index watches but never scores: what the bioregion's ecosystems can carry, and the planet's limits. Both are read here, not added up. The page looks different on purpose. It is italic, with more white space and less data, so the shift away from the interactive scores is felt. These are the limits the Community → City → Region levels have to live within.
Six of nine planetary boundaries, the Earth-system limits science has drawn, have been crossed. Mediterranean biocapacity, what the basin's ecosystems can regrow in a year, is in 18% overshoot. The three levels have to land inside this envelope. No score above counts for much if the envelope is breached.
Mediterranean bioregion
Watersheds, carrying capacity, what the ecosystems provide. A bioregion is drawn by nature, not by government lines. Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia, Provence, the Balearic basin. They share the same ecosystems. The region's score lives inside this.
Source: Global Footprint Network 2023; EUROSTAT MFA Mediterranean proxy.
| Biocapacity headroom | overshoot | −18% |
| Material extraction | elevated | 5.7 t/cap·yr |
| Circularity gap | deep | 86% |
| Watershed stress (Júcar + Ebro) | high | ≈ 1.4 |
| Mediterranean Sea ecosystem state | degrading | n/a |
Planet
Earth-system processes. Nine boundaries, six already crossed. The planet is also Layer 7, the top of the framework's full stack of scales, the space where the world shares knowledge. As a level that adds up, it is nothing at all. Read here, never totalled.
Source: Richardson et al. 2023, Science Advances, Stockholm Resilience Centre.
The Fab City pledge is to make what we consume close to home by 2054. You cannot judge that pledge at the city or region level alone. The bioregion's envelope and the planet's limits set the conditions that make any local score mean something.
↪ Return to the aggregation atlas · or read the scale-by-scale walk through Community → City → Region → boundary.