Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

Publications

Publications

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  NATURE COMMUNICATIONS - Assessing global sustainability performance, imbalance, and coordination over space and time

  Published on October 16, 2025
  We developed three indices—SDRPI, SDCI and SDCI—to measure global SDG performance, imbalances, and coordination over time and across space.

• DATA IN BRIEF - A synthesized dataset of Pacific Arctic marine mammal occurrences (1860-2024)

  Published on September 8, 2025
  This paper presents a synthesized dataset of marine mammal occurrences in the Pacific Arctic from 1860 to 2024.

• SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT - Spatiotemporal dynamics of coastal dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico over 20 years using remote sensing

  Published on June 1, 2025
  We integrated satellite imagery with field observations in random forest models on the Google Earth Engine platform to characterize dead zone dynamics from 2000 to 2019.

• CONSERVATION BIOLOGY - Bridging conservation gaps under climate change at multiple scales to protect 30% of Earth's surface by 2030

  Published on May 31, 2025
  We developed 1-km-resolution hotspot maps for climate change vulnerability with the exposure–sensitivity–adaptation framework and a systematic conservation planning approach.

• FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT - How can China curb biological invasions to meet Kunming-Montreal Target 6?

  Published on May 15, 2025
  We consider the status of IAS in China, evaluate China's ongoing countermeasures against IAS, and provide recommendations for improving management.

• SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT - Compound effects of drought and COVID-19 on soybean production in Brazil: Challenges and policy responses

  Published on March 25, 2025
  This study investigates the cumulative and interactive impacts of drought and COVID-19 on soybean production in Brazil, focusing on cascading economic and operational disruptions.

• ACS NANO - Opportunities and Challenges of DNA Materials toward Sustainable Development Goals

  Published on March 18, 2025
  We establish direct relationships between DNA-based engineering systems and the SDGs, highlighting their inherent merits in accelerating sustainable development.

• ONE EARTH - Reducing sand mining’s growing toll on marine biodiversity

  Published on February 21, 2025
  Global demand for marine sand is on the rise, expanding dredging impacts on biodiversity. Systems approaches like the metacoupling framework help uncover overlooked impacts and balance resource extraction with biodiversity conservation.

• COMMUNICATIONS EARTH & ENVIRONMENT - The Russia-Ukraine war reduced food production and exports with a disparate geographical impact worldwide

  Published on December 20, 2024
  The ongoing war has directly damaged arable land and agricultural infrastructure, leading to direct losses of crops in the war zones and difficulties in cultivating some arable land.

• NATURE SUSTAINABILITY - City–company collaboration towards aligned science-based target setting

  Published on December 4, 2024
  Focusing on the top 200 cities and 500 companies by greenhouse gas emissions, we analyse the current state and potential of adopting science-based targets for climate.

• NATURE SUSTAINABILITY - City-company collaboration towards aligned science-based target setting

  Published on December 4, 2024
  Focusing on the top 200 cities and 500 companies by greenhouse gas emissions, we analyse the current state and potential of adopting science-based targets for climate.

• GEOGRAPHY AND SUSTAINABILITY - Complex adaptive systems science in the era of global sustainability crisis

  Published on November 9, 2024
  We address the advantages of complex adaptive systems (CAS) science for sustainability by identifying the key elements and challenges in sustainability science, the generic features of CAS, and the key advances and challenges in modeling CAS.

• Unveiling interprovincial geographic patterns of 5A-level tourism cultural ecosystem service flows and tourist preferences in China's ' s metacoupled systems

  Published on October 23, 2024
  In the metacoupling Anthropocene, tourism-based culture ecosystem services flows (CESF) can establish nonmaterial bridges from the natural to the human system, even across vast geographic distances. However, there remains a knowledge gap regarding in...

• APPLIED GEOGRAPHY - Unveiling interprovincial geographic patterns of 5A-level tourism cultural ecosystem service flows and tourist preferences in China's metacoupled systems

  Published on October 15, 2024
  We analyzed the intracoupling (within-province), pericoupling (adjacent-province), and telecoupling (distant-provincial) flow patterns using a sample of 143,681 5A attractions travel comments with Internet Protocol (IP) location data.

• JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION - Unveiling complementarities between mangrove restoration and global sustainable development goals

  Published on October 5, 2024
  This investigation follows the ‘product space’ method in economics and creates the ‘Mangrove-SDG space’ to assess each metric pair’s cooccurrence and comparative advantages with validated stability.

• NATURE COMMUNICATIONS - Mixed effectiveness of global protected areas in resisting habitat loss

  Published on September 27, 2024
  we analyze the performance of over 160,000 protected areas in resisting habitat loss at different spatial and temporal scales, using high-resolution data.

• THE LANCET PLANETARY HEALTH COMMISSION - A just world on a safe planet: a Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations

  Published on September 11, 2024
  We quantify safe and just Earth-system boundaries (ESBs) and assess minimum access to natural resources required for human dignity and to enable escape from poverty.

• HELIYON - Heterogeneous and interactive effects of payments for ecosystem services on household income across giant panda nature reserves

  Published on July 19, 2024
  This study used linear regression and geographic detector analysis to evaluate the effects of the NFCP and GTGP on household income and the factors which moderate these effects.

• NATURE GEOSCIENCE - Substantial increase in China’s manufactured sand supply since 2010

  Published on July 19, 2024
  We present a material flow analysis of sand from 1995 to 2020 that shows China’s overall sand supply surged by approximately 400% over the study period.

• THE INNOVATION GEOSCIENCE - Innovations in science, technology, engineering, and policy (iSTEP) for addressing environmental issues towards sustainable development

  Published on July 17, 2024
  The evolution of sustainability science reviewed. iSTEP is addressing key environmental issues towards sustainable development outlined. Future perspectives on iSTEP for promoting sustainable development are proposed.