The East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW) is located on the eastern periphery of the city of Kolkata and extends up to the Bidyadhari-Matla River confluence. It is a Ramsar Site and acts as an absorber basin for a large number of contaminants drained from Kolkata. Agricultural lands, sewage-fed fisheries, garbage dumping fields, horticulture, and built-up areas are included in this protected area, that covers approximately 125 km². It reveals that climate change reduces the variety of wetland ecosystem services and increases socio-economic vulnerability and economic stress. The human encroachment, reclamation of land for agriculture, aquaculture, and urban expansion in and around Kolkata has recently adversely threatened the EKW. The remotely sensed data, socio-economic data, and responses of inhabitants have been used to analyse the EKW’s risk and vulnerability. We employed geospatial analysis by using the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method using nine risk factors. An in-depth analysis of the EKW using geospatial techniques and the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) helped to understand the EKW transformations through vulnerability and risk analysis. The results show that the transformation of the wetland to aquaculture, eutrophication and pollution, road proximity, waste dumping, population density, and growth are the main factors for the deteriorating health, quality, and environment of the EKW. It also reveals that quantitative and qualitative evaluations of ecosystem services, wetland degradation, transformation, and cause-effect rapport should be periodically assessed using scientific methods like FAHP, RS, GIS to formulate resilient, integrated plans and strategy for the sustainable management of the EKW.

The small-scale fishermen in the north-eastern floodplains are one of the most vulnerable communities of Bangladesh due to their limited income. This study assessed their livelihood status using a sustainable livelihood framework and employed a multiple regression model to evaluate factors influencing their earnings. Primary data were collected from fishermen’s households in Tanguar Haor and Hakaluki Haor through direct interviews. Results revealed that these households lacked human capital, had poor sanitation facilities and suffered from frequent diseases. Their income is very limited as they lack training on other socioeconomic activities to complement their livelihood grounded on fishing. Hence, their financial capital was very deficient and ranked lowest among other livelihood capitals. Fishermen’s major physical assets were the boats used for group and individual fishing. These small-scale fishermen had limited involvement with local administration, and around half of them were members of various NGOs. Women of these households had low participation in fishing or other income activities. The income of the fishermen was influenced by their age, fish catch per day, training and NGO membership. To increase the earnings and improve the livelihood status of small-scale fishers in the floodplain, this study suggests providing training on complementary income generating activities, improving sanitation facilities and providing additional government and non-government support.

Steep-slope agricultural landscapes are under threat due to climate change. On the one hand, the growing frequency of extreme high-intensity rainfall events concentrated in both temporal and spatial scales are causing flash floods or slope failure risk scenarios. On the other hand, future climate projections indicate a significant expansion of arid zones in the steep slope agricultural system. There is evidence that these landscapes face a high risk of growing water scarcity. Considering their unique role in crop production, ecosystem diversity, and crop production, ecosystem diversity, and cultural heritage, understanding sustainable water resource management for mitigating climate change-induced drought has never been more urgent than today. In these landscapes, unique indigenous knowledge of water conservation is adopted to manage water resources improving their resilience optimally. It is, therefore, necessary to promote water storage to mitigate floods or increase the resilience to prolonged drought (creating at the same time favourable conditions for biodiversity). Modern technological advances (e.g., high-resolution remote sensing and GIS-based modelling) are crucial in supporting these activities and understanding earth’s surface processes.

Challenges faced by African countries in achieving the goals of sustainable development are similar and transboundary. Previous analysis of Africa’s progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has largely been non-spatial, reducing the ability to find spatial relationships between countries and SDGs to help cooperation and proffer country-specific interventions. This study adopted techniques of exploratory and inferential spatial statistics to assess the successes of African countries from 2016 to 2020 in achieving the goals of sustainable development. Also, the study sought to understand how the spatial synergies and trade-offs between SDGs vary per country and time. The results revealed that spatial hotspots of countries with high SDGs scores were mostly confined to northern African countries with significant coldspots within central and eastern Africa and few patches in western and southern Africa for 2016. In 2020, the number of countries forming hotspots reduced, with Central African countries as significant cold spots. Five main spatial relationships: positive linear, negative linear, concave, convex and undefined complex, were found among countries and the SDGs. However, these spatial relationships were fluid as they changed over time and with different levels of influence from 2016 to 2020. The study concludes that generic solutions and policies by development agencies, governments, development finance instiutions and other impact investors will not be enough in achieving the SDGs because of the spatial heterogeneity of the continent. Tailored and country-specific policies based on results of spatial statistics matter.

Climate change significantly impacts the lives of all people. Global change is composed of multiple factors that affect the population differently, having a very significant impact in the Mediterranean area. Human beings, through their actions, try to mitigate this impact and thus generate a more resilient society. Extreme hydrological events are affected by this climate change, with torrential rainfall events and severe droughts becoming frequent. Understanding these trends will allow us to better adapt to future conditions. This study aims to analyse catastrophic floods and severe droughts from paleo studies to studies that focus on future projections. For this purpose, a search for information has been carried out through other studies over the last five years to have a current perspective of this situation. Studies point to changes in the dynamics of floods and droughts, not only worsening the extremes but also affecting the average values of the records of each. In addition, the studies point out that anthropic action is accelerating the changes, with human beings and their capacity to adapt being inferior to the velocity of this global change. It is necessary to generate a paradigm shift in terms of global production by trying to adapt to future extreme flood and drought hazards.

Quantifying soil conservation service is critical for sustainable land management. However, the traditional algorithm includes a gap between barren land and real soil erosion (BSERef), and its paradox is that a mass of barren land rarely exists in ecologically adaptable areas with fertile soils, which might overestimate soil conservation service. This study suggests a practical algorithm to effectively evaluate soil conservation service of different ecosystems. We propose a new algorithm based on the difference between cropland without control practices and real soil erosion (CSERef), which is compared with the BSERef algorithm. Our results show that: (1) a nearly five times smaller mean soil conservation amount of cropland occurred in the CSERef algorithm (3.76×10⁶ t·yr^-1) than in the BSERef algorithm (20.04×10⁶ t·yr^-1); (2) land use has higher explanatory power for the spatial differentiation of soil conservation rate in the CSERef algorithm (15.93% - 46.34%) than in the BSERef algorithm (5.95% - 44.49%). Our results demonstrate that the BSERef algorithm overestimates the soil conservation service of cropland in ecologically adaptable areas, whereas the CSERef algorithm can effectively assess the influence of land use change induced by anthropogenic activities on soil conservation service. Furthermore, we develop an assessment framework in terms of land use classification system following the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The framework considers that for water bodies, there is no soil conservation service; for non-ecologically adaptable areas (unused land) with vast barren lands and vegetation cover below 5%, the BSERef algorithm is recommended; the CSERef algorithm is suggested to use in ecologically adaptable areas (including woodland, grassland, cropland and construction land). This assessment framework can provide scientific assistance for decision-makers to formulate strategies for sustainable land management.

Water security is under threat worldwide from climate change. A warming climate would accelerate evaporation and cryosphere melting, leading to reduced water availability and unpredictable water supply. However, the water crisis in the Northern Slope of Tianshan Mountains (NSTM) faces dual challenges because water demands for fast-growing urban areas have put heavy pressure on water resources. The mountain-oasis-desert system features glacier-fed rivers that sustain intensive water use in the oasis and end in the desert as fragile terminal lakes. The complex balance between water conservation and economic development is subtle. This paper investigates changes in hydroclimatic variables and water security-related issues on the NSTM. The spatiotemporal variations in glaciers, climatic variables, rivers, lakes and reservoirs, groundwater, surface water, human water use, and streamflow were analyzed for the past four decades. The results show that temperature in the NSTM exhibited an apparent upward trend with a more significant warming rate in the higher altitude regions. Glacier mass loss and shrinkage was strong. The average annual streamflow increased from 1980-1989 to 2006-2011 at most hydrological stations. The monthly dynamics of surface water area showed notable variability at both inter-annual and seasonal scales, revealing the impacts of both natural and anthropogenic drivers on surface water availability in the region. The terrestrial water storage anomaly showed a decreasing trend, which might be related to groundwater pumping for irrigation. Human water use for agriculture and industry grew with the increase in cultivated land area and gross domestic product (GDP). The increased agricultural water use was strongly associated with the expansion of oases. It is unclear whether water availability would remain high under future climatic and hydrological uncertainties, posing challenges to water management. In the context of rapid urban growth and climate change, balancing water for humans and nature is vital in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in NSTM. This study provides a baseline understanding of the interplay among water, climate change, and socio-economic development in NSTM. It would also shed light on wise water management under environmental changes for other rapidly developing mountain-oasis-desert systems worldwide.

A growing imbalance between energy carbon emissions and vegetation carbon sequestration is a major impediment to achieving Sustainable Development Goals. Decoupling the growing imbalance from economic growth needs a stringent and coordinated package of sustainable policies. Previously, enhancing efficiency and vegetation carbon sequestration were dominant drivers to decouple. However, the role and magnitude of restructurings in the energy sector and economy in decoupling were underestimated. In this context, China’s 30 provinces were selected as study areas. By employing a carbon footprint pressure (CFP) indicator to represent the imbalance, a widely decoupling method was adopted to describe the decoupling state and trend of CFP and economic growth. An extended IPAT equation and the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index method were further used to reveal the role and magnitude of drivers on decoupling. The findings revealed that the CFP climbed significantly in 26 provinces between 2006 and 2015. We discovered that 22 provinces were working toward absolute decoupling, with 15 provinces achieving it during the 12-th Five-Year Plan. Our analysis revealed that improving energy efficiency was the primary driver of absolute decoupling, while substituting natural gas and oil for coal, reducing industry share, and enhancing carbon sequestration accelerated absolute decoupling. Considering the limited future role of improving energy efficiency and vegetation carbon sequestration, there is an urgent need to optimize and upgrade the structures of the energy sector and economy to mitigate the future climate risk.

Under global warming, seasonal snow takes faster melting rate than before, which greatly changes the hydrological cycle. In this study, by targeting three typical seasonal snow-covered land types (i.e., open shrubland, evergreen needleleaf forest and mixed forest) in the Northern Hemisphere, the start of growing season (SGS) has been found obviously advanced in the past years, greatly contributed by the faster melting rate of seasonal snow. It is manifested that significantly positive correlation has been found between SGS and May snow depth for open shrubs, March and April snow depth for evergreen needleleaf forests and March snow depth for mixed forests. However, such close association is not appeared in all the climate conditions of same vegetation. In the future, as the rate of melting snow becomes faster in the high emission of greenhouse gasses than the current situation, continuously advanced SGS will accelerate the change of vegetation distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. These findings offer insights into understanding the effect from seasonal snow on vegetation and promote the sustainable utilization of regional vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict is a dramatic world event. Apart from the loss of life, the present conflict has tremendous impacts on the environment, economy, and society. The conflict provoked a ripple of events with implications at the global level, especially in energy and food. The escalation of this conflict is imposing severe threats to achieving the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) not only to the countries directly involved in the conflict but also to other countries, especially the developing ones that are more vulnerable to the economic crisis. In this editorial, we assessed the impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on Biophysical SDGs, Social SDGs, Economic SDGs and Partnership for the Goals SDG that consider all the previous dimensions. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict’s impact on the SDGs is variable. Biodiversity SDGs are mainly affected at the regional level (Russia, Ukraine, surrounding and European Union countries). Society SDGs are affected at local (e.g., SDG3 good health and wellbeing; SDG4 quality education) and global (e.g., SDG2 zero hunger) levels. Finally, the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict has world-level implications for the economic SDGs. Nevertheless, the ongoing conflict’s impacts are not entirely understood, and several uncertainties exist. Peace is needed to achieve the UN’s SDGs in 2030.