TY - JOUR
T1 - Sustainability challenges for the social-environmental systems across the Asian Drylands Belt
AU - Chen, Jiquan
AU - John, Ranjeet
AU - Yuan, Jing
AU - Mack, Elizabeth A.
AU - Groisman, Pavel
AU - Allington, Ginger
AU - Wu, Jianguo
AU - Fan, Peilei
AU - De Beurs, Kirsten M.
AU - Karnieli, Arnon
AU - Gutman, Garik
AU - Kappas, Martin
AU - Dong, Gang
AU - Zhao, Fangyuan
AU - Ouyang, Zutao
AU - Pearson, Amber L.
AU - Şat, Beyza
AU - Graham, Norman A.
AU - Shao, Changliang
AU - Graham, Anna K.
AU - Henebry, Geoffrey M.
AU - Xue, Zhichao
AU - Amartuvshin, Amarjargal
AU - Qu, Luping
AU - Park, Hogeun
AU - Xin, Xiaoping
AU - Chen, Jingyan
AU - Tian, Li
AU - Knight, Colt
AU - Kussainova, Maira
AU - Li, Fei
AU - Fürst, Christine
AU - Qi, Jiaguo
N1 - Funding Information:
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the . Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Fulbright Global Scholar Development Program of China 2019YFC0507801 2019YFC0507805 National Key Research Basic Frontier Science Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences ZDBS-LY-DQC023 LCLUC 80NSSC20K0410 80NSSC20K0411 NNH18ZDA001N NNX15AD51G George Washington University http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100007108 NSF 1558389 1717770 2019691 yes � 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Asian drylands
KW - geopolitical events
KW - global change
KW - institution
KW - land use
KW - social-environmental system
KW - sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123861699&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac472f
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/ac472f
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85123861699
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 17
JO - Environmental Research Letters
JF - Environmental Research Letters
IS - 2
M1 - 023001
ER -
