Sustainable development of marine resources requires a robust national coastal and ocean policy and harmonization of environmental management systems in areas of overlapping interests among nations. This is becoming increasingly important in the efforts of governments worldwide. Critical issues related to the exploitation of natural resources and the degradation of marine ecosystems, coupled with global crosscutting environmental issues such as climate change and climate-related hazards, require forging cross-border cooperation and international consensus on ensuring ecosystem-based approach principles in marine management and maritime domain awareness and security as reflected in the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. Increasing the scale of marine planning processes entails increased cooperation on humankind’s shared endowment of global oceans and interconnected marine systems. As a result, interactions across the world are multiplying, which intensifies the dialogue of civilisations. The following exploration of a roadmap for developing an Integrated Marine/Maritime Policy in the Asia-Pacific region reveals enhanced opportunities for maintaining environmental integrity and sustainability in transboundary areas while considering local, regional, and global socio-economic and environmental challenges. This is a science-policy analysis of the marine-related practices of the region under consideration. The key here is to improve environmental safety and strengthen global security because of coherent actions jointly adopted in a setting of mutual respect and unity by a shared purpose to create reliable foundations for sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region.

A brief geographical description is provided for Lake Khanka and its drainage basin where the Russian part accounts for more than 90% of the area. Sixteen rivers on the Russian territory and eight rivers on the Chinese territory flow into the lake. Only one river, Sungacha, flows out of the lake; it is a border river and connects Lake Khanka with the Ussuri river. A historical analysis of the water level dynamics in Lake Khanka for the last 10 thousand years showed that rises of the lake water level, shore erosion, an increase in flood frequency and duration, and an increase of the degree of waterlogging of the valleys corresponded to warm climatic phases. The cold phases showed a decrease in hydraulicity of the rivers and in the lake level, and an enhancement in aeolian processes in the coastal zone of the lake and its river valleys. Seismic processes and changes in groundwater flow can also be responsible for changes in the lake water level. Morphostructural analysis indicates a potentially high seismic activity of this territory and risks of magnitude 8 earthquakes. In the 20^th century, the natural processes of water level fluctuations in the lake began to be influenced by anthropogenic factors, such as the water withdrawal for irrigation of paddy fields and streamflow control. The territory of China within the Lake Malaya Khanka drainage basin is the home for extensive paddy systems which are supplied with water from the Muling river basin. The water is then directed to Lake Malaya Khanka, and through the drain facilities it enters Lake Khanka. In fact, an inter-basin transboundary water transfer is carried out, which can affect significantly the water level in the lake. Characteristics of the existing nature management practices in the Russian portion of the lake drainage basin, and also lake pollution assessments are given. The main geo-ecological problems in the Lake Khanka transboundary drainage basin associated with water level fluctuations, geodynamic processes and environmental pollution are identified. Geo-ecological problems are considered to mean changes in natural processes accompanied by the transformation of separate natural components and landscapes in general, and causing, as a rule, negative consequences for humans and for various forms of nature management. The primary and related components of the geo-ecological problems highlighted. The main directions of comprehensive research within the framework of cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation in order to work out the plan for governance of sustainable nature management in the transboundary drainage basin of Lake Khanka are suggested.

It has been defined that the clear spatial differentiation in the Far East is characteristic of the manifestation of the continentality and oceanicity interaction: it is minimal in the central areas of the continents and oceans and maximal in the transboundary ones. It has been established that the probability of origin and development of the related anomalous processes and disasters was included in the relation of continentality and oceanicity. Many peculiarities of the dynamic of the geosystems and anomalous processes are clarified. For example, the number and intensity of anomalous processes increase: the frequency of storms and storm surges grows and the washway of the seashores and submarine nearshore slope, etc., intensifies. As a result, the strip of active interpenetation of the continentality and oceanicity, emphasized currently by the mottled alternation of the forms, processes, and formations (in the goltsy zone of the middle altitudes, the formation of rock glaciers and cryogenic sorting of grounds and ice blisters and more in the valleys of mountain rivers) that are “strange” in origin, becomes displaced to the east, to the coastal zone. The repetition frequency of the extreme processes and their effect on the geosystems in the continental margin of the Russian Far East have increased in recent decades. It has been established that the use of continentality and oceanicity characteristics allows us to determine the ecological risks and has the high potential of application in solving urgent problems. It has been stated that the selection of the sustainable nature management strategy in the areas under consideration should make allowance for the existing risks and environmental restrains determined by them.

An analysis is made of the variability of the acidity index of precipitation and fluxes of wet sulfur and nitrogen deposition on the territory of the Far Eastern Federal District of the Russian Federation (FEFD). The analysis uses data of Roshydromet (Hydrometeorological Service of Russia). It is found that alkaline precipitation is characteristic for most of the FEFD (Yakutia and Transbaikalia). However, an increase in the acidity of precipitation is observed in the southeast of the region during the period under consideration. The average annual pH values of precipitation in Primorskii krai dropped below 5.6 in the first decade of the 21st century to reach 4.6–4.7 in particular years at some of the monitoring stations. It is pointed out that the ever-increasing use of nitrogen fertilizers in East Asian countries leads to an increase in the flux of atmospheric nitrogen deposition, which negatively affects forest vegetation. The annual flux of wet deposition at the EANET Primorskaya international monitoring station between 2006 and 2015 was 6.37 kg/ha per year for S deposition and 6.3 kg/ha per year for N (nitrate + ammonium). Similar values were obtained by averaging data from all stations in Primorskii krai. In 2018, this flux exceeded a critical value of 10 kg/ha per year. The Ternei monitoring station located in the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve observed twice as few nitrogen fluxes as that at the Primorskaya station, but an order of magnitude higher than the values recorded in the western part of FEFD. The determining factor for an increase in the acidity of precipitation and for the high levels of nitrogen depositions in the south-east of FEFD is the transboundary atmospheric transport of pollutants from the centers of anthropogenic emissions in East Asia. The analysis of data made in this paper is in agreement with reports of Roshydromet on the state and pollution of the environment of the Russian Federation and supplements and details them.

The stages of development of basic geographical research in the Russian Far East from 1971 to the present are considered. The main fields of scientific studies into the components of the landscape geosphere in the continent–ocean transition zone are shown, and an analysis is made of the natural resource management structures and socioeconomic aspects of the region’s development, including in the transboundary context. Fundamental theoretical and applied research results obtained by Pacific Geographical Institute, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (PGI FEB RAS), are presented. The studies on the geographical forecast theory, dynamics of geosystems, and territorial economic structures that were originally formulated in the 1970s by A.P. Kapitsa, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the first director of the PGI FEB RAS, are still taking place at the institute. The most important contribution to the further development of the PGI FEB RAS has been made by P.Ya. Baklanov, academician of the RAS, who headed the Institute from 1991 to 2016. In the 1990s, new relevant fields of research, such as studies of the sustainable development issues, dynamics and stability of geosystems of different ranks, and forecasting changes in forest vegetation, appeared, which methodologically continued the forecasting and geographical topics. The study of the role of market-oriented reforms in the transformation of territorial economic structures, migration processes, and foreign economic and geopolitical factors in the development of the Far Eastern region and problems of coastal–marine and transboundary natural resources management began. At the same time, the geographical scopes of the studies covered not only the Russian Far East, but also adjacent regions of Russia, neighboring countries, and vast areas of the Pacific Ocean. The eastward vector of Russia’s contemporary development influenced geographical research in the Far East as well. To form a balanced system of socioeconomic development of the region, research focused on the functional zoning of its territory, master plans for the preparation of settlements, setting up the priorities for transboundary cooperation in the field of sustainable natural resources management, transboundary economic corridors, and the development of green zones in terms of the Northern Sea Route and the New Silk Road conceptions are especially relevant now.