An effective production structure of economic sectors may play an important role in balancing societal advances and environmental conservation, which are two competing sustainable development objectives. We tested the notion in the context of Tibet region. The region is considered to be a critical barrier for ecological security in China, whereas its environment is largely impacted by economic development that is dominated by major regional cities like Lhasa. To understand what the overall role of economic structures prevailed by major cities may play in the balancing act, we integrate a complex network with an input-output (IO) table from regional perspectives, to delineate the sector-based production and unravel more about the core sectors that drove the overall economic production from 2012 to 2107 in Tibet. We found that there was a significant influence of public administration and social security sector on production, but economy was largely contributed by primary and construction sectors, which highly depended on natural resource consumption. However, the production structure was undergoing a shift, largely reflected by the changes of the core sectors, which started leaning to service sectors with relatively higher productivity and lower environmental impacts. Meanwhile, it highlighted the challenges to sustain the economy without more withdrawal of natural resources, consequently towards more balanced development. Therefore, based on key production path assessment, we further put forward pathways towards more sustainable development by improving supply chain that is centered in agriculture, while transforming sectors around green manufacturing and shifting to more robust and productive service sectors.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) became mandatory in Pakistan in 1983 with the passage of the Pakistan Environmental Protection Ordinance. The Sustainable Development Goals were incorporated into Pakistan's national development strategy, making it the first country in history to do so. The study is based on evaluating the mitigation strategies and environmental impact assessment at the Gulpur Hydropower Project (HPP), Kotli, AJK, which uses the Poonch River's water resources to generate power and has a design capacity of 100 MW using the EIA documentation of Gulpur HPP. In addition to making additional observations and reviewing the literature, the study looked at Mira Power Limited's EIA reports. The possible effects, as well as the Government's and MPL's mitigating actions, were examined by the authors. EIA procedures at the Gulpur HPP considered several laws, including the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency, AJK Wildlife Ordinance of 2013, the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, and Laws Regulating Flow Releases for Hydropower Projects. Projects using hydropower in delicate areas carry a high risk. Given the thorough analysis of the hazards in this instance, it is evident that the EIA had a significant impact on the project's design. The authors concluded that there are no negative environmental effects of the construction of hydropower projects in the concerned area and that all potential effects and compensation were handled legally and efficiently. The study suggested that all hydropower projects in Pakistan undertake environmental impact assessments. Evaluating the mitigation strategies and environmental impact assessment at the Gulpur Hydropower Project.EIA procedures at the Gulpur HPP considered several laws, including the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency.The development of hydropower projects in the affected area had no negative environmental effects, and any potential effects or compensation were handled lawfully and effectively.

The impacts of alternating dry and wet conditions on water production and carbon uptake at different scales remain unclear, which limits the integrated management of water and carbon. We quantified the response of runoff efficiency (RE) and plant water-use efficiency (PWUE) to a typical shift from dry to wet episode of 2003-2014 in Australia's Murray-Darling basin using good and specific data products for local application, including Australian Water Availabil-ity Project, Penman-Monteith-Leuning Evapotranspiration V2 product, MODIS MCD12Q1 V6 Land Cover Type and MODIS MOD17A3 V055 GPP product. The results show that there are significant power function relationships be-tween RE and precipitation for basin and all ecosystems, while the PWUE had a negative quadratic correlation with precipitation and satisfied the significance levels of 0.05 for basin and the ecosystems except the grassland and crop-land. The shrubs can achieve the best water production and carbon uptake under dry conditions, while the evergreen broadleaf trees and evergreen needleleaf trees can obtain the best water production and carbon uptake in wet condi-tions, respectively. These findings help integrated basin management for balancing water resource production and climate change mitigation.

Alpine ecosystems play an important role in maintaining carbon sequestration, water balance, ecological security, biodiversity and human well-being. However, climate change and high-intensity human activities lead to the continuous degradation of vulnerable alpine ecosystems. Based on this, we reveal trends in ecosystem change in the Qilian Mountains of China on a 40-year scale and identify the primary driving factors of change in alpine ecosystems from the perspective of ecosystem service value (ESV) change, providing a more comprehensive picture of the interactions between human society and natural ecosystem. The results showed that more than 55 % of ecosystem types changed from 1980 to 2018, with forests, grasslands, glaciers and bare land being the most vulnerable ecosystems to disturbance, and forest and grassland ecosystems having significant ESV potential (43.99 % and 29.57 %, respectively). However, significant land use and land cover (LULC) changes over the last decade have led to a reduction in ESV stability in alpine ecosystems, where human activities have a more significant impact on ESV of sparse woodland, shrubland and grassland ecosystem at 2800-4000 m. The temperature rise had a more noticeable impact on the ESV of glaciers, alpine meadows and bare land ecosystems at 4000-5500 m. In the long terms, climate change and population growth will threaten the restoration and management of alpine ecosystems. Different ecological development strategies need to be adopted along the altitude, and the establishment of cross regional horizontal ecological compensation mechanism should be accelerated to promote the sustainable development of ecology and people's livelihood in mountainous areas. The results of this study will provide relevant theoretical basis and reference for decision makers, and provide a model for scientific management and sustainable development of alpine ecosystem resources worldwide.

Due to the local and natural characteristics of high latitude and altitude in the Three Polar Region (TPR)-that is, the Antarctic, the Arctic, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP)-this region has been significantly affected by climate change and related disasters. Thus, the sustainable development pathway for the TPR is different from that of other regions. The Antarctic region, as a public territory, experiences sustainability problems that are mainly the result of the integrated impact of tourism and scientific and commercial fishing activities on the continent and ocean. Understanding how to build a shared, co-built, and co-governed, legally binding and equal international multilateral partnership or treaty, and thereby reducing the impact on water life and on land life, is the key pathway to achieving the Antarctic sustainable development goals (SDGs). The Arctic region has both a high level of development at the national level and a low level of development within the country, including the livelihood of indigenous people. Learning how to effectively deal with the domestic development imbalance in the future is a key pathway to achieving Arctic SDGs. The QTP has a fragile ecology and a single industry. As a relatively poor area in China, the ability to promote ecological protection and improve people's welfare through ecological policies is a key pathway to achieving the SDGs in the QTP. At the same time, the TPR also needs to enhance its climate resilience through climate action to mitigate the impacts of climate change. On this basis, to fully achieve the SDGs in support of the TPR, it is necessary to establish and pursue multilateral cooperation in science research, infrastructure, commerce, energy, and mining trades. As an important part of the climate system, spatial and temporal changes in the TPR have direct and indirect impacts on the global climate and other spheres (e.g., Anthroposphere) and also affect the global sustainable development process. Therefore, through the TPR's linkage and multilateral cooperation, the region can simultaneously enter the global sustainable development track.

Decarbonization is a process that transforms economies to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit of economic output, aiming towards net-zero GHG emissions. This process could also reduce short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) emissions, including black carbon and methane. They have relatively short atmospheric life-times but have large radiative forcing and impact human health. Therefore, reducing SLCPs can improve air pollution and help mitigate climate change. Costa Rica was one of the first countries to have a decarbonization plan, and many others have stated their goal to reach net-zero emissions by around mid-century. However, reducing SLCP emissions as an economy decarbonizes is not guaranteed, and few examples in the literature have assessed how decarbonization impacts SLCPs. This paper estimates the SLCP emission reductions from Costa Rica's decarbonization plan. Through a value chain analysis and the identification of implementation barriers, the paper also evaluates which policy instruments can advance SLCP mitigation in multiple sectors, creating implementation synergy. We find that mitigation measures, by 2050, in the transport, agricultural, solid waste, and industrial sectors avoid 25.2 kt of black carbon emissions (23 times the 2018 emissions) and 2167 kt of methane (15 times the 2018 emissions). However, the country faces financial and governance challenges in each sector that will need overcoming to implement the intended mitigation measures. We identify a comprehensive environmental tax reform, the overhauling of urban regulatory plans, the strengthening of institutional capa-bilities, and low-carbon investment with favorable financing as crucial cross-sectoral policy synergies that will advance the implementation of SLCP mitigation.

Taking the Yangtze River Source Basin (YRSB) and Shule River Basin (SRB) as two typical cases, the sustainability of the water resources in these two basins was evaluated using the level of water stress (LWS) from sustainable development goal 6.4.2, and the regulating effect of the glacier runoff on the LWS was quantified. From 2000 to 2030, the level of socioeconomic development in the YRSB is low, and the total water consumption is only about 0.18 x 10(8) m(3), whereas the SRB has a relatively high level of socioeconomic development and total water consumption is about 10 x 10(8) m(3), i.e., 50 times higher than that in the YRSB. For the aforementioned reasons, the SRB's LWS is much higher than the YRSB's, resulting in a very low sustainability of water resources. As natural assets, glaciers flow downstream in the runoff mode, so compensation at the watershed scale should be considered. In the basin, the optimal allocation of water resources is needed. At the inter-basin scale, the compensation mechanism of glacier water resources needs to be improved.

Optimizing the functions and services provided by the mountain cryosphere will maximize its benefits and minimize the negative impacts experienced by the populations that live and work in the cryosphere-fed regions. The high sensitivity of the mountain cryosphere to climate change highlights the importance of evaluating cryospheric changes and any cascading effects if we are to achieve regional sustainable development goals (SDGs). The southern Altai Mountains (SAM), which are located in the arid to semi-arid region of central Asia, are vulnerable to ecological and environmental changes as well as to developing economic activities in northern Xinjiang, China. Furthermore, cryospheric melting in the SAM serves as a major water resource for northeastern Kazakhstan. Here, we systematically investigate historical cryospheric changes and possible trends in the SAM and also discover the opportunities and challenges on regional water resources management arising from these changes. The warming climate and increased solid precipitation have led to inconsistent trends in the mountain cryosphere. For example, mountain glaciers, seasonally frozen ground (SFG), and river ice have followed significant shrinkage trends as evidenced by the accelerated glacier melt, shallowed freezing depth of SFG, and thinned river ice with shorter durations, respectively. In contrast, snow accumulation has increased during the cold season, but the duration of snow cover has remained stable because of the earlier onset of spring melting. The consequently earlier melt has changed the timing of surface runoff and water availability. Greater interannual fluctuations in snow cover have led to more frequent transitions between snow cover hazards (snowstorm and snowmelt flooding) and snow droughts, which pose challenges to hydropower, agriculture, aquatic life, the tail-end lake environment, fisheries, and transboundary water resource management. Increasing the reservoir capacity to regulate interannual water availability and decrease the risk associated with hydrological hazards related to extreme snowmelt may be an important supplement to the regulation and supply of cryospheric functions in a warmer climate.

The cryosphere is able to provide a variety of services for the benefit of human well-being and underpins regional sustainable development. The cryosphere deterioration induced by climate change is impacting the services and will subsequently impede the efforts to meet sustainable development goals (SDGs) in high mountain societies. Here, we detail the context of cryosphere services and establish a dataset for its linkage to SDGs. This allows us to uncover its roles in supporting SDGs, directly by a causal connection and indirectly through either cascading effects or interconnection among SDGs. We find that the SDGs in association with the basic needs of high mountain societies are mostly affected by the cryosphere services. The different types of services pitch in with distinctions to be embraced by various SDGs, whilst some play a prominent role in the contribution to a broad range of SDGs. We further investigate how the services behave in their contributions to SDGs, by taking a view via the lens of a network that deciphers the relationship between the services and SDG targets as well as the interconnections among SDG targets. With an insight into the centrality and modularity of services in the network, we then delineate the inherent criticality of services to SDG targets as a whole, and reveal the specificity of services that co-contribute to a cluster of SDG targets in each network community. We take out the services from the network and maintain their interlinks to the targets of each underlying SDG system represented in six key entry points, so that the services critical to the transformation pathways in the entry points for SDGs in high mountains can be identified. Finally, we discuss the trade-offs that can occur in high mountains, which is unique for the cryosphere services. It creates more complexity in the assessment of overall benefits that the cryosphere services may provide to SDGs, and urges the balance that has to be maintained in attaining those services for the transformation.

Soil is a key component of Earth's critical zone. It provides essential services for agricultural production, plant growth, animal habitation, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and environmental quality, which are crucial for achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, soil degradation has occurred in many places throughout the world due to factors such as soil pollution, erosion, salinization, and acidification. In order to achieve the SDGs by the target date of 2030, soils may need to be used and managed in a manner that is more sustainable than is currently practiced. Here we show that research in the field of sustainable soil use and management should prioritize the multifunctional value of soil health and address interdisciplinary linkages with major issues such as biodiversity and climate change. As soil is the largest terrestrial carbon pool, as well as a significant contributor of greenhouse gases, much progress can be made toward curtailing the climate crisis by sustainable soil management practices. One identified option is to increase soil organic carbon levels, especially with recalcitrant forms of carbon (e.g., biochar application). In general, soil health is primarily determined by the actions of the farming community. Therefore, information management and knowledge sharing are necessary to improve the sustainable behavior of practitioners and end-users. Scientists and policy makers are important actors in this social learning process, not only to disseminate evidence-based scientific knowledge, but also in generating new knowledge in close collaboration with farmers. While governmental funding for soil data collection has been generally decreasing, newly available 5G telecommunications, big data and machine learning based data collection and analytical tools are maturing. Interdisciplinary studies that incorporate such advances may lead to the formation of innovative sustainable soil use and management strategies that are aimed toward optimizing soil health and achieving the SDGs. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.