Integrative Modeling and Strategic Planning for Regional Sustainability under Climate Change

Climate change and land use/land cover change have resulted in water shortage, degraded ecosystem services, and increased disaster risks across the world. Developing strategies and measures for achieving regional and global sustainability in the face of these environmental problems is a key topic of current climate change research. This paper provides an overview of the 973 project, entitled “Integrative Modeling and Strategic Planning for Regional Sustainability under Climate Change”, including its background, relative progresses, key scientific questions, major research elements, methodology, and expected outcomes. The proposed research is based on sustainability science, guided by the idea of Orderly Human Activities (OHA), and implemented through an integrated methodology of combining field observations, simulation experiments, and scenario analysis. The main objectives of the project are: to quantify the relationship between human activities and climate change, to assess the impacts of human activities on ecosystem services and human well being in the face of climate change, and to develop an integrated model of climate change, OHA, and regional sustainable development. The ultimate goal is to provide a landscape/regional-scale strategy for sustainable development in the face of climate change. The project is expected to help advance the science and application of landscape sustainability science and land system design, particularly in terms of linking climate change, ecosystem services, and human well-being in the dry land region of China.