Based on the homogenized daily data of 2255 meteorological stations during the past 60 years from 1961 to 2020, the potential evapotranspiration was calculated using the revised FAO56 Penman–Monteith model, and then the annual AI (aridity index, the ratio of annual potential evapotranspiration to annual precipitation) was employed to analyze the dry-wet climate change in China. The GCM models’ prediction data was used to analyze the possible trends of dry-wet climate in China by the end of this century. The results showed that in the past 60 years, the climate in China was getting wetter, especially in the western regions of China, including Xinjiang, western Qinghai, Gansu, western Inner Mongolia, and northwestern Tibet. In the last 10 years, China’s climate has become more humid. Compared with the 1960s, the total area of aridity has decreased by about 650,000 square kilometers. The changes of different climate zones have regional and periodical characteristics. There was a tendency to get wet periods in all four seasons, especially in summer. Analysis of GCM model projection data shows that by the end of this century, the climate in China would have a general trend of becoming drier. The drier regions are mainly located in the central and eastern parts of China, while the western regions of China continue to maintain the wetting trends. In the case of high emissions, the trends of drying in the central and eastern and wetting in the west are more significant than in the case of medium emission.

Climate-related risks pose a great threat to urban safety, infrastructure stability and socioeconomic sustainability. China is a country that crosses diverse geomorphic and climatic regions in the world and is frequently affected by various climate hazards. In this study, we propose a comprehensive analysis on the spatial pattern of major climate hazards in China from 1991 to 2020, including rainstorms, droughts, heatwaves, coldwaves, typhoons, and snowstorms, and generate an integrated sketch map on multi-hazard zones. It is detectable that South of the Yangtze River is in danger of heatwaves, rainstorms, and typhoons, while the North China Plain is more likely to suffer droughts. Coldwaves, snowstorms, and freezing mainly affect Northeast China, Northwest China, and the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. In the view of climate governance, cities are hotspots affected by intensified climate hazards in a warmer climate. There is an urgent need to incorporate a climate adaptation strategy into future city construction, so as to improve social resilience and mitigate climate impacts in rapid urbanization process. Specific adaptation measures have been developed from the perspectives of land-use planning, prevention standard, risk assessment, and emergency response to facilitate the understanding of climate resilience and urban sustainability.

In the use of integrated assessment models to determine how the economy is affected by climate change, the bidirectional coupling of Earth system model with the integrated assessment model is needed. In the context of coupled problems in human‐Earth systems, two issues persist: spatial and temporal scale matching. For spatial scale matching, this paper proposes the area weight conversion method, a gridding method for calculations to accord with the grid of the Earth's system mode, where administrative data cells are transformed into grid data by “pregridding” and “postgridding.” For temporal scale matching, the temporal scale of the economic statistics was shortened to 1 year to render it consistent with the Earth system model. Using the area weight conversion method, grid processing was performed in terms of population and Gross Domestic Product for all provinces of China and every country of the world, respectively. The results showed that the characteristics of gridding population and Gross Domestic Product data were consistent with their actual distributions, that is, the credibility of gridding was high. The temporal matching treatment refined to the year and the spatial matching treatment following gridding met the overall requirements of coupling. Moreover, they provide a foundation for the coupling of the human‐Earth system model.