Geography is suitable for the study of sustainability from a transdisciplinary perspective, which takes the human-land relationship as the core research. As a key obstacle to rural sustainability, poverty is an external manifestation of the coupling maladjustment of elements in human-land territorial systems. As the world's largest developing country, China eradicated extreme poverty in 2020 and made significant contributions to global poverty reduction. Especially over the last eight years, China has implemented a targeted poverty alleviation (TPA) strategy and has continuously promoted theoretical, organizational and institutional innovations for poverty reduction. From the perspective of geography, this paper extracts the experiences of China's TPA strategy, represented by the "5W2H" mode. The research concludes that: (1) Precise identification, as the foundation of TPA, aims to introduce a registration system to obtain records of all poor households and then answer the "5W" (what, where, why, who, when) issues of the geography of poverty. (2) Precise assistance is the key of TPA, which aims to solve the issue of "how to offer help and support". The barriers to escaping poverty can be accomplished through policies and measures that focus on the diverse causes of poverty and considering different situations. (3) Accurate assessments are an essential means of TPA, relevant to solve "how to measure the end of poverty alleviation", and third-party evaluations play an important role in improving the accuracy of poverty alleviation. (4) The TPA mechanism lies in reconstructing the human-land-industry structures in the impoverished areal system. It is urgent to introduce China's successful experience and typical modes of TPA for global human-earth system coordination and sustainable development and contribute to building a community of human destiny.

The accurate prediction of poverty is critical to efforts of poverty reduction, and high-resolution remote sensing (HRRS) data have shown great promise for facilitating such prediction. Accordingly, the present study used HRRS with 1 m resolution and 238 households data to evaluate the utility and optimal scale of HRRS data for predicting household poverty in a grassland region of Inner Mongolia, China. The prediction of household poverty was improved by using remote sensing indicators at multiple scales, instead of indicators at a single scale, and a model that combined indicators from four scales (building land, household, neighborhood, and regional) provided the most accurate prediction of household poverty, with testing and training accuracies of 48.57% and 70.83%, respectively. Furthermore, building area was the most efficient indicator of household poverty. When compared to conducting household surveys, the analysis of HRRS data is a cheaper and more time-efficient method for predicting household poverty and, in this case study, it reduced study time and cost by about 75% and 90%, respectively. This study provides the first evaluation of HRRS data for the prediction of household poverty in pastoral areas and thus provides technical support for the identification of poverty in pastoral areas around the world.

The social lockdowns and strict control measures initiated to combat the COVID-19 pandemic have had an impact on human migration. In this study, big data was used to analyze spatial patterns of population migration in 369 Chinese cities during the COVID-19 outbreak and to identify determinants of population migration. We found that the overall migration intensity decreased by 39.87% compared to the same period in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 severely affected human migration. The public holidays and weekends have impacted human migration from the perspective of time scale. The spatial pattern of China's population distribution presents a diamond structure that is dense in the east and sparse in the west, which is bounded by the Hu line and the cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu as nodes to connect. There is a strong consistency between the population distribution center and the level of urban development. The urban human migration network is centered on provincial capitals or municipalities at the regional scale, showing a prominent "center-periphery" structure. COVID-19 dispersed the forces of human migration in time and changed the direction of human migration in space. But it did not change the pattern of national migration. The most critical factors influencing mass migration are income levels and traditional culture. This study reveals the impacts of major public health emergencies on conventional migration patterns and provides a scientific theoretical reference for COVID-19 prevention and control.

The trade-offs and supply-demand relations of ecosystem services (ES) are at the frontier of geographical and ecological studies. However, previous studies have focused on either trade-offs or the supply-demand aspects, while ES conflicts and supply/demand contradictions have not been comprehensively examined. The relationship between ES trade-offs and supply-demand is logically valid and studying the coupling of both can provide approaches for simultaneously alleviating ES conflicts and supply-demand contradictions. This study, based on a review of previous analyses of ES trade-offs and supply-demand dynamics, proposes a new analytic framework to couple them. First, we define two types of trade-offs based on the directions of growth or decline of the two services. We also define the supply-demand balance area and the supply-demand risk area according to the ES flow characteristics. Second, the mechanisms driving ES trade-offs are clarified, and land-use scenarios are set based on the mechanisms. Third, the supply-demand spatial characteristics of ES are analyzed, and supply-demand risk areas are identified. Finally, scenario iterations are performed to minimize the supply-demand risk area at an acceptable trade-off intensity to identify an optimal land use plan, which simultaneously alleviates ES conflicts and supply-demand contradictions. This analytic framework offers new opportunities for improving sustainable ecosystem management.

Research findings concerning the main processes influencing water resources differ substantially, and so the topic remains controversial. Recent studies indicate that the changes in water yield, expressed through the n-parameter of Budyko framework, are associated with vegetation coverage changes. Here, we use runoff measurements and outputs from 13 dynamic global vegetation models, to investigate the underlying drivers of the n-parameter changes. Unlike previous studies, we instead find that climate change is the primary driver of adjustments on water resources. Changing climatic characteristics, particularly the intensity and seasonality of rainfall, modulates the runoff generation process. Indirect effects of climate change occur through altering vegetation properties, which in turn also impact river flow. We also find that in the arid and sparse vegetation regions, water yield is more sensitive to changes in n-parameter. Thus, the Budyko framework provides a reliable parameter-sparse representation of runoff changes, and reveals that terrestrial water cycle is changing substantially under climate change. This climate forcing requires on-going investigation to generate more refined and reliable projections of future water availability.

Guyana's capacity to address the impacts of climate change on its coastal environment requires the ability to monitor, quantify and understand coastal change over short-, mediumand longterm. Understanding the drivers of change in coastal and marine environment can be achieved through the accurate measurement and critical analyses of morphologies, flows, processes and responses. This manuscript presents a strategy developed to create a central resource, database and web-based platform to integrate data and information on the drivers and the changes within Guyana coastal and marine environment. The strategy involves four complimentary work packages including data collection, development of a platform for data integration, application of the data for coastal change analyses and consultation with stakeholders. The last aims to assess the role of the integrated data systems to support strategic governance and sustainable decision-making. It is hoped that the output of this strategy would support the country's climate-focused agencies, organisations, decision-makers, and researchers in their tasks and endeavours.

In the Anthropocene, health is necessary to achieve global sustainable development. This is a challenge because health issues are complex and span from humans to ecosystems and the environment through dynamic interactions across scales. We find that the health issues have been mainly addressed by disciplinary endeavors which unfortunately will not result in panoramic theories or effective solutions. We recommend focusing on the intricate interactions between humans, ecosystems and the environment for developing common theoretical understandings and practical solutions for safeguarding planetary health, with human health as the key indicator and endpoint. To facilitate this paradigm shift, a holistic framework is formulated that incorporates disturbances from inner Earth and our solar system, and accommodates interactions between humans, ecosystems and the environment in a nested hierarchy. An integrative and transdisciplinary health science is advocated along with holistic thinking to resolve our current health challenges and to achieve the health-related sustainable development goals.

The article considers the issue of the world cities in terms of sustainable development. The population has been increasing in such intensive rates never reached during the middle of the 20th century. The expansion of the cities indicates, on the one hand, the growth of the world's general socio-economic development, on the other hand, it raises a number of economic, social and environmental problems. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current state and prospects of the world cities in terms of the sustainable development concept, to identify opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses of the world cities, to determine the role of cities in the contemporary global world and consider further research of the world's cities. The authors analyzed the world cities rankings and noted that highly developed cities have more chances to quickly implement the sustainable development concept compared to medium-sized cities due to larger financial resources. The authors built a SWOT analysis of the world cities transformation in terms of the sustainable development concept, identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. According to the results of the SWOT analysis, the authors established that sustainable development of cities requires significant investments, particularly in the social sphere development, purification, and preservation of urban nature from the anthropogenic impacts. The research result is the systematization of the sustainable development criteria used in compiling the world cities rankings, determining the possibilities of the contemporary cities transition to the sustainable development concept.

Smart farming solutions combine information, data software tools, and technology with the intent to improve agricultural production. While smart farming concepts are well described in the literature, the potential societal impacts of smart farming are less conspicuous. To demonstrate how smart farming solutions could influence future agricultural production, agri-business and rural communities and their constituents, this article compares smart farming approaches and reasons behind the pursuit of smart farming solutions by the U.S. and South Korea. The article compares agricultural assets and productivity among the two countries as well as the technical and societal challenges impacting agricultural production as a basis to understanding the motivations behind and pathways for developing smart farming solutions. In doing so, the article compares some of the technological and social advantages and disadvantages of smart farming, dependending on the choice and implementation of smart farming solutions. The South Korean government has implemented a national policy to establish smart farming communities; a concept that addresses the entire agri-food supply chain. In the U.S., a national plan to develop smart farming technologies does not exist. However, discrete smart farming solutions driven mainly by competition in the private sector have resulted in high-tech solutions that are advancing smart farming concepts. The differences in approaches and reporting of successes and failures between the two countries could facilitate the rate of evolution of successful smart farming solutions, and moreover, could provide pathways to facilitate sustainable development goals in developing countries where smart farming activities are currently underway.