The imbalance between human activities and Earth's natural surface adversely affects the sustainability of the Earth system. From an understanding of the suitability of surface functions and potential ramifications of policy decisions, this study proposes a sustainable geographical pattern. It introduces a national‐to‐provincial downscaling approach to optimizing a national‐scale zoning scheme that covers 60%–80% of land development and protection functions in China and to creating a major function zoning model. Taking China as the case study area, the following function zones are identified: urbanization zones, food security zones, ecological security zones, and heritage protection zones. This study then proposes a three‐dimensional index system and algorithm, develops individual and integrated assessments for the major functions of the land grid, and produces national‐scale and provincial‐scale major function zoning schemes consisting of county‐level administrative cells, the first schemes to create a blueprint for a sustainable national land pattern in China through optimized convergence. In total, 5% of China's land area is covered by urbanized zones, 28% by food security zones, 55% by ecological security zones, and 12% by heritage protection zones. In the future, there will be 805 urbanization administrative units, 790 food security counties, 780 ecological security counties, and 8,151 heritage protection zones. The scheme created using the model developed in this study is 95% consistent with the final scheme implemented by China's central government, and it has a high degree of robustness and precision. It can serve as a reference for scientific research and decision‐making concerning sustainable development in developing countries.

Human activities along with climate change have unsustainably changed the land use in coastal zones. This has increased demands and challenges in mapping and change detection of coastal zone land use over long-term periods. Taking the Bohai rim coastal area of China as an example, in this study we proposed a method for the long time-series mapping and change detection of coastal zone land use based on Google Earth Engine (GEE) and multi-source data fusion. To fully consider the characteristics of the coastal zone, we established a land-use function classification system, consisting of cropland, coastal aquaculture ponds (saltern), urban land, rural settlement, other construction lands, forest, grassland, seawater, inland fresh-waters, tidal flats, and unused land. We then applied the random forest algorithm, the optimal classification method using spatial morphology and temporal change logic to map the long-term annual time series and detect changes in the Bohai rim coastal area from 1987 to 2020. Validation shows an overall acceptable average accuracy of 82.30% (76.70–85.60%). Results show that cropland in this region decreased sharply from 1987 (53.97%) to 2020 (37.41%). The lost cropland was mainly transformed into rural settlements, cities, and construction land (port infrastructure). We observed a continuous increase in the reclamation with a stable increase at the beginning followed by a rapid increase from 2003 and a stable intermediate level increase from 2013. We also observed a significant increase in coastal aquaculture ponds (saltern) starting from 1995. Through this case study, we demonstrated the strength of the proposed methods for long time-series mapping and change detection for coastal zones, and these methods support the sustainable monitoring and management of the coastal zone.

It is a matter of public consensus that China's high growth rate has been achieved at the expense of natural resources and the environment, leading to serious risks to sustainability. This research, which proposes a theoretical model to forewarn of risks to regional developmental sustainability in China, constitutes the first empirical evaluation of this to be undertaken there. The results show that: (a) the areas at risk cover almost 43% of the land and 44% of the population of mainland China. In those areas, 83.56% of people at risk are threatened by the low carrying capacity of the environment and limited water resources. (b) With 70% of the total population living in “at risk” areas, urbanization zones remain as the primary category suffering from overload across China. Extensive industrialization has resulted in environmental pollution, which contributes the most to the forewarning status, while the secondary cause is found to be the special coupling of the scarcity of natural water resources and their inefficient use. In addition, most urban conglomerations suffer from pollution by industrial production and household consumption, which tends to extend to their surrounding agricultural areas. Extensive mineral exploitation in ecologically fragile areas has made them increasingly more vulnerable to disturbances from their neighboring resource‐driven urban areas. The paper uses these findings to suggest how to intensify the special regulatory administration of resources and the environment, and to transform approaches to industrialization, in order to address sustainable development issues in developing countries.

Remotely sensed vegetation indices (VIs) have been widely used to estimate the aboveground biomass (AGB) carbon stock of coastal wetlands by establishing Vis-related linear models. However, these models always have high uncertainties due to the large spatial variation and fragmentation of coastal wetlands. In this paper, an efficient coastal wetland AGB model for the Bohami Rim coastal wetlands was presented based on multiple data sets. The model was developed statistically with 7 independent variables from 23 metrics derived from remote sensing, topography, and climate data. Compared to previous models, it had better performance, with a root mean square error and r value of 188.32 g m⁻² and 0.74, respectively. Using the model, we firstly generated a regional coastal wetland AGB map with a 10 m spatial resolution. Based on the AGB map, the AGB carbon stock of the Bohai Rim coastal wetland was 2.11 Tg C in 2019. The study demonstrated that integrating emerging high spatial resolution multi-remote sensing data and several auxiliary metrics can effectively improve VIs-based coastal wetland AGB models. Such models with emerging freely available data sets will allow for the rapid monitoring and better understanding of the special role that “blue carbon” plays in global carbon cycle.

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau serves as an important ecological security shelter in China and across Asia. During the past two decades, the patterns of land development and conservation on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have undergone significant changes under the impacts of global climate change and human expansion. This paper analyzes the evolution of land development and conservation patterns and potential ecological implications on the Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2020 based on urbanization, agricultural and pastoral patterns with multi-source data, such as long-term time series land use data, ecological indices, environmental pollution, and population and economics. It was found that: (1) Coinciding with the agglomeration of population and economy, the urban development pattern on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has spatial-temporal differentiation. Urban development in the 2010s was more significant than that in the 2000s, with the intensity increased by 63.31%, and the development pattern varies spatially, which can be seen from the finding that central Tibet (the Yarlung Tsangpo, Lhasa river, and Nyangchu basins) and Huangshui River Basin in Qinghai Province were developed in a planar pattern, while other node cities and border towns in a dotted pattern. (2) The agricultural production pattern is relatively stable, the grain yields have increased by 34.68% in the past 20 years, but the total amount of arable land is shrinking, and the degree of fragmentation has increased. The pattern of pastoralism has changed greatly, showing a migration trend from west to east spatially, and there is a serious problem of pasture overload, with an increase of 18.4% in livestock products. Regardless of the pattern of urbanization or agricultural and livestock development, the intensity of human activities on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has shown an intensified trend in the past. (3) It shows that Lhasa City area and the middle and lower reaches of Huangshui show a trend of diffusion of atmospheric and water environmental pollution. The western part of the Ali region and the northern foothills of the Himalayas and other regions, under the combined impact of climate change and human activities, have undergone significant ecological degradation. Accordingly, this paper proposes policy recommendations for optimizing production and living space, advancing the establishment of national park clusters and nature reserve systems, and the integrated recovery of mountain, water, forest, lake, grass, sand, and ice with ecological value achievement.