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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.
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This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2025
Deeper Engagement with Material and Non-Material Aspects of Water in Land System Science: An Introduction to the Special Issue
Water access and use impact land management decisions and livelihoods. Despite the integral role water plays in land systems, land system science (LSS) research often fails to explicitly incorporate water into analyses of socioecological systems (SES) resilience related to land. Nonetheless, water scarcity, especially in the face of climate change and resource degradation, is a pressing issue. Water availability is crucial to many ecosystem functions, from supporting biodiversity to mitigating extreme weather events such as flooding or drought. In this introduction to the “Water in Land System Science” Special Issue, we argue for deeper integration of land and water dynamics in LSS to increase SES resilience. First, we present an overview of the need for this integration, followed by a synopsis of the authored contributions in this Special Issue towards this goal. We then provide potential entry points researchers can use to foster this integration, exploring the following topics: water governance and hydrosocial territories, the cultural geographies of water, hydrophilia, water in agricultural transitions, remote sensing innovations, and participatory approaches to the study of the water component of land systems. We conclude that interactions between land, water, and people remain understudied, despite being more important than ever for ensuring future sustainability.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2435176
- PAR ID:
- 10611327
- Publisher / Repository:
- MDPI
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Land
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 12
- ISSN:
- 2073-445X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2095
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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