Assessing coupling interactions in a safe and just operating space for regional sustainability.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36914668.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-37073-z and PMC identifier 10011604.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Human activities affect the Earth System with an unprecedented magnitude, causing undesirable irreversible degradation. The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an integrated global action plan for sustainable development. However, it remains a great challenge to develop actionable strategies to achieve regional sustainability within social-environmental constraints. Here we proposed a framework, integrating safe and just operating space (SJOS) with SDGs, to assess regional sustainability and interactions between environmental performance and human well-being across scales. Despite China has not fully achieved sustainable development from 2000 to 2018, most provinces have shown significant improvements. Our analyses further delineated four development patterns (i.e., coupled and developed, coupled and underdeveloped, uncoupled and underdeveloped, and coupled and underdeveloped), and developed targeted strategies and pathways for each pattern to transition towards sustainability. Our operationalizable framework is broadly applicable to other regions or nations to actualize sustainable development.