[M-IS01] Environmental, Socio-Economic and Climatic Changes in Northern Eurasia

[MIS01-06] Sustainability of the Macro Social-Environmental Systems in the Asian Drylands Belt (ADB)

*Jiquan Chen¹ (1.Michigan State University)

キーワード：Sustainability, Asian Drylands, Social-Environmental System, Land use, Climate change

The Asian Drylands Belt (ADB) covers 10.3% of global land area and 30% of total global drylands (>15 million km²). Despite being mostly landlocked, this region contains several important migration and trade routes, including the Silk Road, which connects east Asia to the west. The ADB region 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 USSR. The social-environmental systems (SES) of the ADB are 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 land cover change as important drivers. The overall mean (SD) of IMoSES (i.e., integrated metric on social-environmental systems) of the ADB over the 25-year study period is 47.19 (90.09) $² yr⁻² pers⁻² mm⁻¹, with the lowest value of 0.23 $² yr⁻² pers⁻² mm⁻¹ for Afghanistan in 2001 and the highest of 585.27 $² yr⁻² pers⁻² mm⁻¹ for Mongolia in 2012. On behalf of all my co-authors, I introduce the ADB’s history before presenting five pressing, practical challenges for the sustainability of the SES: (1) Reduced water quantity and quality under warming, drying, and escalating extreme events, (2) Continued, if not intensifying, geopolitical conflicts, (3) Volatile, uncertain, and shifting socioeconomic structures, (4) Volatile, uncertain, and shifting socioeconomic structures, and (5) Globalization and cross-country influences. While the sustainability of the ADB is certainly affected by climate, globalization, rapid urbanization, labor migration, and other widespread environmental and socioeconomic changes, LULCC is a key direct driver for the sustainability of the ADB landscapes and the region as a whole. These complex dynamics of SES need to be understood through linking the biophysical, socioeconomic, institutional, and local context-dependent mechanisms.