Sustainability challenges for the social-environmental systems across the Asian Drylands Belt

Chen J. John R. Yuan J. Mack E.A. Groisman P. Allington G. Wu J. Fan P. De Beurs K.M. Karnieli A. Gutman G. Kappas M. Dong G. Zhao F. Ouyang Z. Pearson A.L. Şat B. Graham N.A. Shao C. Graham A.K. Henebry G.M. Xue Z. Amartuvshin A. Qu L. Park H. Xin X. Chen J. Tian L. Knight C. Kussainova M. Li F. Fürst C. Qi J.
February 2022 IOP Publishing Ltd

Environmental Research Letters
2022 #17 Issue 2

This paper synthesizes the contemporary challenges for the sustainability of the social-environmental system (SES) across a geographically, environmentally, and geopolitically diverse region - the Asian Drylands Belt (ADB). This region includes 18 political entities, covering 10.3% of global land area and 30% of total global drylands. At the present time, the ADB is confronted with a unique set of environmental and socioeconomic changes including water shortage-related environmental challenges and dramatic institutional changes since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The SES of the ADB is assessed using a conceptual framework rooted in the three pillars of sustainability science: social, economic, and ecological systems. The complex dynamics are explored with biophysical, socioeconomic, institutional, and local context-dependent mechanisms with a focus on institutions and land use and land cover change (LULCC) as important drivers of SES dynamics. This paper also discusses the following five pressing, practical challenges for the sustainability of the ADB SES: (a) reduced water quantity and quality under warming, drying, and escalating extreme events, (b) continued, if not intensifying, geopolitical conflicts, (c) volatile, uncertain, and shifting socioeconomic structures, (d) globalization and cross-country influences, and (e) intensification and shifts in LULCC. To meet the varied challenges across the region, place-based, context-dependent transdisciplinary approaches are needed to focus on the human-environment interactions within and between regional landscapes with explicit consideration of specific forcings and regulatory mechanisms. Future work focused on this region should also assess the role of the following mechanisms that may moderate SES dynamics: socioeconomic regulating mechanisms, biophysical regulating mechanisms, regional and national institutional regulating mechanisms, and localized institutional regulating mechanisms.

Asian drylands , geopolitical events , global change , institution , land use , social-environmental system , sustainability

Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи

Department of Geography Environment and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 48824, MI, United States
Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 48823, MI, United States
Department of Biology, Sustainability, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, 57069-2307, SD, United States
North Carolina State University, NOAA North Carolina State University, Asheville, 28801, NC, United States
P P Shirshov Institute for Oceanology, Moscow, 117997, Russian Federation
Department of Geography, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States
School of Life Sciences, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, 85287, AZ, United States
School of Planning Design and Construction, East Lansing, 48824, MI, United States
Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, United States
Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 849900, Israel
NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street SW, Washington, 20546, DC, United States
Cartography GIS and Remote Sensing Department, Georg-August-Universitï¿½t Göttingen, Goldschmidtstr. 5, Göttingen, Goettingen, 37077, Germany
School of Life Sciences, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, China
National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China
Earth System Science, Stanford University, 94305, CA, United States
Faculty of Architecture and Design, Ï¿½zyeǧin University, İstanbul, 34794, Turkey
James Madison College of Public Affairs, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 48823, MI, United States
Department of Romance and Classical Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 48823, United States
Department of Economics, University of the Humanities, Ulaanbaatar, 210620, Mongolia
Forest Ecology and Stable Isotope Center, Forestry College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China
The World Bank, Washington, 20433, DC, United States
Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Qianyanzhou Ecological Research Station, Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Cooperative Extension, University of Maine, Orono, 04469, ME, United States
Sustainable Agriculture Center, Kazakh National Agrarian Research University, Almaty, 050010, Kazakhstan
Grassland Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot, 010010, China
Institute for Geosciences and Geography, Department of Sustainable Landscape Development, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (IDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

Department of Geography Environment and Spatial Sciences
Center for Global Change and Earth Observations
Department of Biology
North Carolina State University
P P Shirshov Institute for Oceanology
Department of Geography
School of Life Sciences
School of Planning Design and Construction
Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability
Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research
NASA Headquarters
Cartography GIS and Remote Sensing Department
School of Life Sciences
National Hulunber Grassland Ecosystem Observation and Research Station
Earth System Science
Faculty of Architecture and Design
James Madison College of Public Affairs
Department of Romance and Classical Studies
Department of Economics
Forest Ecology and Stable Isotope Center
The World Bank
Institute of Botany
Qianyanzhou Ecological Research Station
Cooperative Extension
Sustainable Agriculture Center
Grassland Research Institute
Institute for Geosciences and Geography
Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (IDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig

10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель

Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026