Earth surface process and regional sustainable development

The State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (ESPRE) was established in 2007, since then fundamental and applied systematic research have been carried out on the Earth’s surface multi elements, multi-scale and multi processes and their resource ecological effects．Here we summarize works done in ESPRE in the past 15 years．Observation systems and large-scale simulation facilities were constructed for desertification process, soil erosion process and eco hydrological process．Theory and applications of biodiversity maintenance mechanism, landscape ecology and ecosystem services were studied．The environmental evolution and human activities, Earth-human system dynamics model and simulation were explored．The fourth area of emphasis was regional sustainable development, including changes in land use/cover (LUCC) and comprehensive natural disaster risk. In the future, we will carry out more organized research and explore systematic solutions to Earth surface problems．The core goal of the lab is to study human-land system coupling theory and regional high-quality development path in ecologically fragile areas and disaster high-risk areas．The main tasks are now identified: to construct space-ground integrated observation networks, to systematically carry out comprehensive research from the process of various elements such as “mountains, rivers, forests, field, lakes, grass, sand and ice” to the life communitiy as a whole．We will develop analysis and simulation devices, to reveal mechanism and dynamic process of nature- human interaction, to build a multi-factor, multi-process and multi-scale surface dynamic model system, and to reveal coupling mechanism and process of Earth-human system．We plan to undertake systematic national scientific research tasks, to analyze mutual feeding mechanism and correlation effect between human and natural systems, and to establish a regional high-quality development monitoring, evaluation and early warning system for long-term strategies of national ecological civilization．