Research framework for integrated geography: Composite driving–system evolution–coupling mechanism–synergistic regulation

Abstract

Amid ongoing global environmental change and the critical pursuit of sustainable development, human–environment systems are exhibiting increasingly complex dynamic evolutions and spatial relationships, underscoring an urgent need for innovative research frameworks. Integrated geography synthesizes physical geography, human geography, and geographic information science, providing key frameworks for understanding complex human–environment systems. This editorial proposes an emerging research framework for integrated geography—“Composite driving–System evolution–Coupling mechanism–Synergistic regulation (CSCS)”—based on key issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, resource scarcity, and social–ecological interactions, which have been highlighted in both recent critical literature on human–environment systems and UN assessment reports. The framework starts with diverse composite driving forces, extends to the evolution of human–environment system structures, processes, and functions that these drivers induce, explores couplings within human–environment systems, and calls for regulation aimed at sustainable development in synergies. Major research frontiers include understanding the cascading “evolution–coupling” effects of shocks; measuring system resilience, thresholds, and safe and just operating space boundaries; clarifying linkage mechanisms across scales; and achieving synergistic outcomes for multi-objective sustainability. This framework will help promote the interdisciplinary integration and development of integrated geography, and provide geographical solutions for the global sustainable development agenda.

Keywords

Integrated geography / Driving / Evolution / Coupling / Regulation / Human–environment system

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Wenwu Zhao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Zizhao Ni: Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Caichun Yin: Writing – review & editing. Yanxu Liu: Writing – review & editing. Paulo Pereira: Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Wenwu Zhao and Paulo Pereira are Associate Editors for this journal and were not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. W2412144, 42271292), the 111 project, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China. The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive suggestions provided by Professor Bojie Fu from the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Supplementary materials

A Chinese language version of this editorial can be found as supplementary material in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.geosus.2025.100321.

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