Earths Future

Earth's Future (earths-future)

Journal positioning

Earth's Future is an open-access American Geophysical Union (AGU) journal, published by Wiley, dedicated to the Anthropocene and the future of the Earth system as it is reshaped by human activity. Its defining character is integration across the natural and human dimensions of global change: it rewards work on Earth-system futures, sustainability, human-Earth interactions, scenarios and projections, risk and resilience, and the coupled feedbacks between society and the planet. The journal sits between disciplinary geoscience and solutions-oriented sustainability science, addressing a broad interdisciplinary readership that includes Earth scientists, environmental and social scientists, and the policy-facing research community. Work is judged on whether it advances understanding of how the Earth system is changing and where it is headed — with rigor on both the physical and human sides. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the AGU/Wiley Earth's Future site.

When to trigger

• The author names Earth's Future as the target for a study on Earth-system futures, the Anthropocene, sustainability, or coupled human-Earth dynamics.
• A manuscript integrates physical Earth-system change with human drivers, impacts, scenarios, or responses, and the author is choosing between Earth's Future and One Earth, Nature Sustainability, or Global Environmental Change.
• A projection, scenario, or risk-and-resilience study spans disciplines in a way that a single-discipline geoscience journal would not fully serve.
• The author needs Earth's Future's interdisciplinary framing, open-access terms, and data policy, plus desk-reject criteria, before submission.

Scope & topic fit

• Earth-system futures and projections: scenario-based studies, integrated assessment, and model projections of climate, water, land, carbon, and biogeochemical change.
• Human-Earth interactions: coupled human-natural systems, land-use and water-use feedbacks, food-energy-water nexus, and socio-environmental dynamics.
• Sustainability and the Anthropocene: planetary boundaries, sustainability transitions, and the trajectory of human pressures on Earth-system functioning.
• Risk, vulnerability, and resilience: exposure to climate and Earth-system hazards, adaptation, and the resilience of coupled systems.
• Solutions-relevant analysis: mitigation, adaptation, and management pathways evaluated with quantitative Earth-system or integrated methods.
• Cross-cutting interdisciplinary studies that connect physical change with societal drivers and consequences at regional-to-global scale.

Method & evidence bar

• The contribution must engage Earth-system futures or human-Earth coupling with genuine rigor, not invoke "the future" as framing around a narrow disciplinary result.
• Quantitative methods — models, scenarios, integrated assessment, statistical or observational analysis — must be appropriate, validated, and transparent about assumptions and uncertainty.
• Scenario and projection studies must justify scenario choices, document model configuration and forcing, and characterize structural and parametric uncertainty.
• Interdisciplinary studies must be rigorous on both sides: the physical analysis and the human/social or policy analysis must each meet the standards of their field.
• Data and code must be deposited in an AGU-compliant FAIR repository (e.g., Zenodo, PANGAEA, or a domain archive) with persistent identifiers; AGU enforces data availability at acceptance.
• Claims about implications for policy or management must be grounded in the evidence presented, not asserted beyond what the analysis supports.

Structure & house style

• Earth's Future uses a standard full-length structure: Abstract, Plain Language Summary, Introduction, Data/Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, with full references.
• A Plain Language Summary is required in addition to the technical abstract and is especially important given the policy-facing, interdisciplinary readership.
• The introduction must frame the Earth-system-futures or human-Earth significance clearly so a cross-disciplinary reader sees why the question matters.
• Figures should communicate across disciplines: projections, scenarios, and risk results must be legible to readers outside the authors' home field.
• Methods and model details must be reproducible from the main text or Supporting Information, including scenario definitions and data provenance.
• An Open Research (data availability) statement is mandatory and must list every dataset and code resource with repository and identifier.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Earth's Future author guidelines" and follow the current AGU/Wiley version.
• Re-check article-type definitions, length expectations, and the Plain Language Summary requirement.
• Re-check open-access terms and article-processing-charge details, and AGU's Open Research / data-and-software availability policy and accepted FAIR repositories.
• Re-check competing-interests, funding, authorship (CRediT), and AI-use disclosure requirements; confirm preprint policy (ESSOAr/preprint posting is generally compatible).
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence — the Earth-system-futures or human-Earth question advanced and why it matters across disciplines.
• The study engages futures/coupling with real rigor rather than as framing around a single-discipline result.
• Scenario, model, and data choices are justified, reproducible, and accompanied by an uncertainty treatment on both physical and human sides.
• A jargon-free Plain Language Summary is written and accurate for a policy-facing readership.
• Data and code are deposited in a FAIR repository with persistent identifiers; the Open Research statement is complete.
• The paper is positioned against recent Earth's Future / One Earth / sustainability-science literature on this question.

Common desk-reject triggers

• A narrow single-discipline geoscience result dressed in "future" framing without genuine Earth-system-futures or human-Earth content.
• A scenario or projection study that does not justify scenario choices or characterize uncertainty.
• An interdisciplinary manuscript that is rigorous on one side but weak or hand-waving on the other.
• Policy or management claims asserted beyond what the analysis supports.
• Missing or non-compliant Open Research / data-availability statement, or data in a non-persistent location.

Re-routing decision

• Solutions-focused sustainability science with strong cross-cutting reach: One Earth or nature-sustainability.
• Primarily social-science framing of environmental change and human dimensions: global-environmental-change.
• A process-level atmospheric or physical-climate study without the human-Earth coupling: journal-of-geophysical-research-atmospheres.
• A commissioned synthesis rather than primary research: nature-reviews-earth-and-environment.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Earth's Future
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <does the work engage Earth-system futures / human-Earth coupling with rigor on both physical and human sides, including uncertainty?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <length/article type / Plain Language Summary / open-access & APC / Open Research data-code policy / disclosure>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>