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

Author:

Chen JiquanORCID,John RanjeetORCID,Yuan Jing,Mack Elizabeth A,Groisman PavelORCID,Allington Ginger,Wu Jianguo,Fan Peilei,de Beurs Kirsten MORCID,Karnieli Arnon,Gutman Garik,Kappas Martin,Dong GangORCID,Zhao Fangyuan,Ouyang Zutao,Pearson Amber L,Şat BeyzaORCID,Graham Norman A,Shao Changliang,Graham Anna K,Henebry Geoffrey MORCID,Xue Zhichao,Amartuvshin Amarjargal,Qu Luping,Park Hogeun,Xin Xiaoping,Chen Jingyan,Tian LiORCID,Knight Colt,Kussainova Maira,Li Fei,Fürst Christine,Qi JiaguoORCID

Abstract

Abstract 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.

Funder

Fulbright Global Scholar

Development Program of China

National Key Research

Basic Frontier Science Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

LCLUC

George Washington University

NSF

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Subject

Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health,General Environmental Science,Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

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