Study region: The Shule River Basin (SRB) in northwestern China is a representative area of global glacier-covered arid areas. Study focus: Water resources have greatly influenced sustainable development in global arid re-gions where glacier runoff is an important component of water resource supply. This study focused on the assessment of the water resources-carrying capacity in the SRB based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicator 6.4.2, level of water stress (LWS). New hydrological insights for the region: During the period between 2000 and 2030, the runoff of the SRB was predicted to follow an overall increasing trend. From 2000 to 2020, the annual average runoff in the upper reaches of the SRB was 10.9 x 10(8) m(3), and then from 2021 to 2030, it increased by 22.8 %. According this trend, the average contribution of glacier meltwater to the total basin runoff is expected to decrease from the current 23 % to 15 % by 2030 (Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6, RCP 2.6). The supply of fresh-water resources has been close to the level of demand since 2015 and the LWS may increase between 2021 and 2030. The existence of glacial meltwater is expected to result in the continued reduction of basin water stress in the SRB by an average of 0.71 during the period between 2000 and 2030. Therefore, it is necessary to control water consumption of the socioeconomic system and adjust the industrial structure to face or adapt to the crisis of water shortage in global glacier-covered arid areas.

Appropriate human activities can have significantly positive effects on vegetation dynamics. In the past 50 years, various ecological policies have improved both ecological change and human well-being in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP), efficiently achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. During 1981-2017, the annual mean normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of the protected areas (PAs) tended to increase significantly at a rate of 2.93 x 10(-4)/a (p < 0.01), while non-PAs only increased by 0.6 x 10(-4)/a (p < 0.5). Improvement in the NDVI of the PAs is more obvious than that of non-PAs. Specifically, the earlier the establishment of the Pas is, the more significant the greening effect will be. Moreover, ecological protection has not slowed improvements in human welfare; on the contrary, the Human Development Index (HDI) has nearly doubled in the past 40 years. In terms of global ecological construction, the Chinese government has demonstrated the responsibilities of a large country in global ecological governance. Chinese initiatives can guide other nations in contributing to the global sustainability aspirations embodied in the 2030 SDGs Agenda. This study can be used as a reference for other countries in the world to coordinate the development of ecological protection and well-being.