Geography and Sustainability 2 (2021) 87–94

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Geography and Sustainability

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geosus

Perspective

The research priorities of Resources and Environmental Sciences

Bojie Fu a,b,∗, Yanxu Liu a, Yan Li a, Cong Wang b, Changjia Li a, Wei Jiang b, Ting Hua a,
Wenwu Zhao a
a
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t
• Resources and environmental problems
drive the discipline development.
• Resources and Environmental Sciences
fundamentally guide sustainable devel-
opment.
• Four research requirements and nine
critical scientific issues were proposed.
• Four recommendations were provided to
support science based policymaking.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The great challenges of sustainable development highlight an urgent need to systematically understand the mech-
Received 24 January 2021 anisms linking humans and nature. Resources and Environmental Sciences are a broad and practical discipline
Received in revised form 12 April 2021 focused on coupled human and natural systems. They aim to study the formation and evolution of resources in
Accepted 12 April 2021
the earth system, the drivers of various environmental problems, processes and relationships between resources
Available online 18 April 2021
and the environment, particularly under the combined impacts of natural conditions and human activities. The
Keywords: major resources and environmental problems drive the discipline development; international science programmes
Anthropocene guide the direction of the discipline; interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary integration promotes new branches
Sustainable development of the discipline; and technological progress results in a research paradigm shift. Facing the critical research re-
Human and natural systems
quirements of strengthening trans- and interdisciplinarity, breaking through the key technology, targeting major
Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary
environmental and disaster issues, and supporting sustainable development, nine critical scientific issues should
integration
Key technology be focused on climate change impact and adaptation, petroleum and mineral resources, water cycle and water re-
Policy recommendations sources, soil and land resources, ecosystems, remote sensing and geographic information science, environmental
science and technology, disaster risk, and global and regional sustainable development. Suggestions to enhancing
funding systems, improve talent cultivation, develop scientific platforms, and strength international cooperation
are provided in this study to support scientific policymaking. The promotion of Resources and Environmental Sci-
ences enables a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of economic development and environmental
changes relevant to assure a more sustainable global development.

1. Introduction and producing more waste and pollution than the natural Earth’s re-
plenishment and self-purification capacity. The Earth faces the “An-
The world has witnessed an exponential growth of the human pop- thropocene” and the tremendous impacts of human activities that have
ulation and rapid increases in industrial manufacturing, food produc- been driven global environmental changes (Lewis and Maslin, 2015;
tion, resources consumption, and environmental pollution since the In- Waters et al., 2016). Anthropogenic perturbation has resulted in un-
dustrial Revolution, over the past 200 years (Meadows et al., 2004; precedented stresses on the Earth planet, leading to numerous ecological
Motesharrei et al., 2017). Humanity has been using more resources and environmental problems such as global warming, sea-level rise, in-
creased flooding and extreme drought events, biodiversity loss and mas-
∗ sive emissions of pollutants (Rockström et al., 2009a; Rockström et al.,
Corresponding author.
2009b). Several key earth system processes, namely, climate change,
E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Fu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2021.04.001
2666-6839/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Beijing Normal University Press (Group) Co., LTD. on behalf of Beijing Normal University. This is
an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
B. Fu, Y. Liu, Y. Li et al. Geography and Sustainability 2 (2021) 87–94

Table 1 atmospheric science, human geography, remote sensing, and geographic

The top 40 words from the search results of “Resources and Environmental Sci- information science), ecosystems (i.e., ecosystem services, biodiversity,
ences” in Web of Science database in January 2021. and macrosystems ecology), the environment (i.e., pollution and infec-
Terms Frequency Terms Frequency tious diseases), natural hazards (i.e., processes, patterns and drivers of
disasters, and measures to prevent disasters), and sustainable develop-
science 226 health 33
management 170 quality 33
ment (i.e., sustainable development goals).
conservation 100 climate 28 Scientific research on resources and the environment is of great sig-
climate change 92 participation 28 nificance to promote the development of other disciplines and related
policy 84 system 28 technologies and implement regional, national and global science and
sustainability 67 risk 27
technology development plans and policy objectives. In addition, Re-
knowledge 65 dynamics 25
framework 60 energy 25 sources and Environmental Sciences provide scientific support for ratio-
governance 55 behaviour 24 nal utilization of soil, water and other resources, resolving major bottle-
resources 49 community 24 neck problems of sustainable development, safeguarding ecological se-
challenges 47 design 24
curity, and improving people’s livelihood. Therefore, it is important to
biodiversity 46 resilience 23
model 46 uncertainty 23
develop future perspectives on the characteristics, key areas, and future
ecology 44 environment 21 scientific research directions on resources and the environment. This pa-
systems 43 fisheries 21 per aims to: 1) summarize the characteristics of Resources and Environ-
ecosystem services 38 land-use 21 mental Sciences, 2) identify the key areas and directions for Resources
future 38 decision-making 20
and Environmental Sciences, and 3) propose funding mechanisms and
water 38 models 20
impact 37 river 20 policies for developing Resources and Environmental Sciences.
information 35 diversity 19
2. The discipline development

The key topics of the Resources and Environmental Sciences were

biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows, and land system change, searched by extracting the information from the titles, keywords, and
have exceeded the safe levels of planetary boundaries for humanity abstracts of the articles published in the Web of Science database (ac-
(Steffen et al., 2015). cessed in Jan 9, 2021). The filter rule was set as “Topic = (resource AND
During the last 50 years, although enormous human efforts have environment)”. The number of published articles since 1960 to 2021
been devoted to environmental protection, the earth system continues was counted, and the most frequent words were extracted (Table 1).
to deteriorate at high speed (Steffen et al., 2020; Tortell, 2020). Hu- The number of publications increased gradually from 1960 to 2000. The
man activities have significantly changed all ecosystems on the planet, “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson in 1962 was the first to tell the public
and 60% of the ecosystem services (15 out of 24) have been degraded that nature was vulnerable to human impacts (Carson, 2002) (Fig. 1).
to unsustainable levels (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The During this period (1962–2000), “Limits to Growth” (Meadows et al.,
2019 report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodi- 1972), “Only One Earth” (Ward and Dubos, 1972), “Our Common Fu-
versity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that 78% (14 out of 18) ture” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987),
of the benefits that humans obtain from nature are rapidly declining and “Agenda 21” (United Nations, 1992) promoted public awareness
due to intensified human activities such as land-use change, population of how humans are changing the earth system, and that the resources
growth, economic development, and technical progress (IPBES, 2019). and carrying capacity of the earth are limited. Since the United Na-
A safe and just space for humanity defines the space between the en- tions put forward the “Millennium Development Goals” (United Na-
vironmental and social boundaries and emphasizes the need to achieve tions, 2000) in 2000, the concept of sustainable development has been
sustainable development (Raworth, 2012). O’Neill et al. (2018) evalu- gradually gaining global consensus. Since then, studies on resources and
ated safe and just space for 150 countries and found that no country is the environment have been accelerating, as the science of resources
able to meet the basic needs of residents while ensuring a sustainable and the environment could guide how to attain harmony between hu-
utilization. They further suggested that the current level of resources mans and nature. From the 40 top most frequent words extracted by the
utilization should be increased by at least 2–6 times to fully achieve WordCloud map, “science”, “management”, “conservation”, “climate
social equity. change”, “policy”, “sustainability”, “knowledge”, “framework”, “gover-
In 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit re- nance” and “resources” were the most frequent (Table 1). This showed
leased the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and proposed a that the core of Resources and Environmental Sciences was to manage
collection of 17 sustainable development goals and 169 specific goals, human behaviour and activities within Earth’s resource limits and en-
requiring innovative models and ways to achieve these goals (United Na- vironmental carrying capacity. Optimization of the resource manage-
tions 2016). The great challenges of achieving sustainable development ment is necessary to ensure the sustainability of the system and recon-
goals highlight an urgent need for a systematic understanding of the cile the tradeoffs between socioeconomic development and protection
mechanisms linking humans and nature (Fu et al., 2019), in order to of resources and the environment (Steffen et al., 2015; D’Odorico et al.,
improve human wellbeing and maintain sustainable resource utilization 2018; Konduracka, 2019).
and environmental integrity (Wu, 2019). The development of Resources and Environmental Sciences revealed
The science of resources and the environment is a comprehensive the following characteristics of the discipline development. Major re-
and practical discipline focused on coupled human and natural systems sources and environmental problems drive discipline development. Due
and aims to study the formation and evolution of resources in the earth to the increasing anthropogenic influence on global weather patterns,
system, the drivers of various environmental problems, the processes climate, land surface, cryosphere, and deep-sea, global changes have in-
and relationships between resources and the environment, particularly creased the environmental risk across all scales and negatively impacted
under the combined impacts of natural conditions and human activi- regional social and economic development. Thus, the concept of sustain-
ties. The methodologies and techniques used generally include a combi- able development emerged to solve resources and environmental prob-
nation of various knowledge and technical methods covering earth sci- lems. The realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs) requires
ences, chemistry, biology, computer science, engineering science and so- insights from the science of resources and the environment, such as the
cial science. Scientific research on resources and the environment covers concept of “planetary boundaries” (Rockström et al., 2009b) and regime
different aspects of geography (i.e., water cycle, soil and land resources, shift theory (Scheffer and Carpenter, 2003), which could provide early

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Fig. 1. The number of publications since 1960 and the seminal work from the search results of “Resources and Environmental Sciences” from Web of Science.

warnings of resource and environmental risk and help develop adap- cess big data generated from multiple sources (Wu et al., 2020). Ge-
tive measures. Moreover, as a bridge between both nature and society, ographic information systems, remote sensing, computer science, big
ecosystem services have been promoted as a management tool closely data, and other technologies have shifted the research paradigm of
linked to sustainability (Abson et al., 2014). The major environmental Resources and Environmental Sciences from qualitative and statistical
and resource problems at local and global scales would directly drive analysis to modelling and prediction.
the innovation and development of the Resources and Environmental
Sciences theories and methods.
International science programmes guide the direction of the disci- 3. Characteristics of the discipline
pline. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research involving experts
from natural, social, economic, engineering and other disciplinary fields 3.1. The comprehensive, systematic and multidisciplinary nature
and policymakers is important to solve environmental and resource
problems. Major international research projects launched by govern- Resources and Environmental Sciences emphasize comprehensive,
mental organizations and research institutions can integrate multidis- systematic and interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary research, as the re-
ciplinary directions and enable cross-disciplinary research, consistent search subject involves a variety of complex systems with high hetero-
with the highly interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary nature of Re- geneity in space and time. Therefore, it is necessary to apply multidis-
sources and Environmental Sciences. In recent decades, a series of in- ciplinary theories and approaches to solve real-world problems. For ex-
ternational scientific programmes on climate change, biodiversity, land- ample, theories such as complex adaptive systems, alternative stable
use change, global environmental change, and sustainable development states, and critical mutualisms have been applied to examine the com-
have drawn the research direction of Resources and Environmental Sci- plexity, systematicness and sustainability of Resources and Environmen-
ences. For example, the Future Earth (Rockström, 2016), an the Inter- tal Sciences (Blindow et al., 1993; Ghazoul and Chazdon, 2017). New
governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem approaches such as artificial neural networks and simulation modelling
Services (IPBES) (Díaz et al., 2015) and the Zero Net Land Degrada- have also been developed. With the application of these integrated the-
tion (ZNLD) (UNCCD, 2012) have joined international researchers and ories and models, Resources and Environmental Sciences combine the
guided the development of the Resources and Environmental Sciences. “top-down” and “bottom-up” methods to guide land management and
Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary integration promotes new restoration, resource planning, forest management, and nature conser-
branches of the discipline. Human and natural systems have formed an vation.
integrated and complex system with a high degree of uncertainty and
multilayer nested characteristics. To solve the complex issues in coupled
human and natural systems, it is necessary to further enhance interdisci- 3.2. A regional and application-driven focus
plinary and transdisciplinary integration to accurately characterize the
coupling relationship between human activities and the natural environ- The research topics of Resources and Environmental Sciences focus
ment using new methods from the social sciences (e.g., anthropology, on regional needs and real-world application. The long-term regional
economics and political science) and natural sciences (e.g., information development and utilization of ecosystems under increasing popula-
technology, geography and remote sensing technology). System cou- tion pressures have seriously degraded ecosystems and their services
pling integration and multiscale synthesis have promoted the develop- (Foley et al., 2005). The resulting environmental problems, such as wa-
ment of new disciplines such as ecohydrology (Baird and Wilby, 1999), ter shortages, soil erosion, desertification and biodiversity loss, pose
social hydrology (Sivapalan et al., 2012), food-water-ecology-energy a serious threat to regional ecological security and sustainability. The
nexuses (Shi et al., 2020), EcoHealth (Harrison et al., 2019), and sus- tradeoffs between resources and the environment and sustainable de-
tainability science (Kates et al., 2001). velopment have become major challenges for human society. However,
Technological advances result in a research paradigm shift. The real- the relationship between environmental change and regional develop-
time observation networks of the earth system provide data to support ment is complex. The distribution of natural resources and environmen-
understanding on the interactions among the lithosphere, hydrosphere, tal problems exhibit considerable spatial variations, and an effective
biosphere, atmosphere, and human sphere. Benefiting from computer solution (e.g., ecological restoration) for one region may not work in
and communication technologies, crowdsourcing geographic data have another region. Solving these problems and providing region-specific
become a novel way to monitor the resources and environment on the solutions are the main research goals of Resources and Environmental
earth’s surface, and cloud computing makes it more convenient to pro- Sciences.

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3.3. Complexity at the different spatial and temporal scales man survival and development and thus should be coupled with various
physical, chemical, and biological processes. Integrating the earth sur-
The research objects and processes in Resources and Environmen- face system and its patterns, processes, and functions can expand the
tal Sciences exist and operate at different scales. Resource and environ- depth of research in subdisciplines of Resources and Environmental Sci-
mental problems, such as those caused by industrialization, often exist ences. Moreover, disciplines such as anthropology, cultural geography,
across the world and are hierarchically nested at multiple scales. The economics, sociology are all important in addressing sustainable devel-
resources and services provided by the natural system depend on the opment issues. With the strengthening of trans- and interdisciplinarity,
ecosystem structure and ecological process at a certain time and space, the mechanism of the human-earth coupling system with multiscale and
and the human wellbeing obtained from the ecological system is also multiprocess characteristics can be better analysed.
scale-dependent. Some ecological processes operate globally, while their
products, services, materials, and energy are often transported across re- 4.1.2. Breaking through the key technology
gions and utilized at the regional level. The scale effects and multiscale The monitoring of the quantity and quality of natural resources
connections of resources and environmental problems are the focus of and their dynamics requires enriching the technological analyses on
Resources and Environmental Sciences. different spatiotemporal scales. Resources and Environmental Sciences
should focus on key technologies, especially those supporting high-
3.4. Key role of technological advances resolution spatiotemporal monitoring and intelligent spatial analysis
systems around the earth’s surface.
Technological advances create new research approaches. The devel-
opment of scientific research needs the support of external technologies, 4.1.3. Targeting major environmental and disaster issues
which in turn drive the research paradigm shift. In the early stage, the Human activities such as agricultural production, industrialization,
research paradigm of Resources and Environmental Sciences was qual- and urbanization have led to increasing water, soil, and air pollution,
itative, mainly describing the distribution of natural resources such as with serious effects on the ecosystems and human health. Moreover,
vegetation, soil, rivers, and mountains. The pattern and processes were global climate change can lead to an increasing frequency and intensity
coupled in the resources and environment to examine the formation and of extreme events. Resources and Environmental Sciences should target
evolution of resources. Therefore, modelling complex human-earth sys- key environmental issues, provide scientific solutions to reduce disaster
tems and sustainable development systems for decision-making is crit- risks, and support effective environmental management.
ical. This paradigm shift is facilitated by technological developments
such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, and computer 4.1.4. Supporting sustainable development
science. The core elements of Resources and Environmental Sciences, includ-
ing climate, soil, water, energy, and biodiversity, are all relevant to the
3.5. Model simulation to support decision-making
sustainable development goals. Therefore, the future development of
Resources and Environmental Sciences should focus on sustainable de-
The rapid development of model simulation supports decision-
velopment and make efforts to provide regional solutions to achieving
making. Emerging new technologies such as big data, artificial intel-
sustainable development (Fu, 2020).
ligence, and machine learning have made it possible to model the com-
plex interactions between global and local elements of the resources
4.2. The critical scientific research areas
and environmental system. In water resource management, the simu-
lation and prediction of hydrological cycles with higher resolution at
4.2.1. Climate change impact and adaptation
basin, regional and global scales provide reliable water availability and
Facing the grand challenge of global climate change, adaptation has
fluxes estimates as a basis for sustainable water management and deci-
received increasing attention from the general public and policymak-
sion making. Complex system models can capture the interactions and
ers (Smith et al., 2009). As a transdisciplinary issue, adaptive capacity
mechanisms between various natural processes, human activities, and
to climate change, especially in developing countries, has raised exten-
their consequences. These models are indispensable tools for testing sce-
sive attention. Therefore, the key research directions in this area in-
narios and support policies to address climate change and environmental
clude (1) the scientific basis of climate change; (2) the impacts of cli-
problems. Extending the research methods by combining the processes-
mate change on natural systems and adaptation; and (3) the impacts of
based models and machine learning can improve models’ capability for
climate change on social and economic systems and adaptation. In par-
decision-making and management in various fields of Resources and En-
ticular, special attention needs to be given to climate change reanalysis,
vironmental Sciences.
risk of extreme events, simulation and prediction of climate change, and
4. The research priorities the impact of climate change on human health and wellbeing.

Resources and Environmental Sciences are an essential interface for 4.2.2. Petroleum and mineral resources
regulating the conflicts between humans and the environment. They Petroleum and mineral resources are pivotal materials to support
should pay attention not only to a single environmental issue but also human survival and socioeconomic development at present. Recently,
to the nexus among the economy, society and environment and the col- the supply and demand of petroleum and mineral resources have led to
laborative governance of social ecosystems (Schmidt-Traub et al., 2017; tense situations due to climate crises and political conflicts. The growth
Liu et al., 2018). Therefore, Resources and Environmental Sciences need of renewable energies becomes a desirable trend for sustainable devel-
to deepen the integration with other disciplines and to better serve opment. The critical scientific research areas for petroleum and mineral
global sustainable development. Research priorities in Resources and resources are (1) the relationship between deep earth processes and min-
Environmental Sciences can be summarized into four critical research eralization; (2) the security of essential mineral resources; (3) mineral
requirements and nine scientific research areas (Fig. 2). exploration techniques; (4) the prediction of mineralization processes;
and (5) renewable energy technology.
4.1. The critical research requirements
4.2.3. Water cycle and water resources
4.1.1. Strengthening trans- and interdisciplinarity The water cycle and water resources are closely coupled with ecolog-
As the interface among the atmosphere, lithosphere, soil sphere, hy- ical, hydrological, geomorphic, and biogeochemical processes and hu-
drosphere, and biosphere, the earth’s surface is closely related to hu- man activities. The critical scientific research areas include (1) global

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Fig. 2. Research priorities in Resources and Environmental Sciences.

and terrestrial water cycle change; (2) coupling of regional water re- 4.2.7. Environmental science and technology
sources; and (3) sustainable utilization of water resources. It is neces- Environmental science and technology research should focus on
sary to separate the contributions of climate change from those derived technology development, major environmental issues, and the linkage
by the human activities on terrestrial water cycle changes, and develop between environmental issues (e.g., air pollution, water pollution, soil
hydrological models considering the influence and feedback of both nat- contamination) and human health. The critical research areas include
ural and human factors. It is also essential to elucidate the coupling and (1) migration and transportation mechanisms of pollutants; (2) environ-
feedback mechanisms of water-food-energy to advance the theoretical mental processes over polluted areas; (3) accurate monitoring of pollu-
understanding of water resources. tants; and (4) pollution control and reduction. Developing a novel re-
search methodology for pollutant behaviour is necessary to reveal the
4.2.4. Soil and land resources mechanisms of polluted multimedia interfaces, migration and transfor-
Soil is the most active layer on the earth’s surface and is the material mation and their interactions with environmental processes and climate
basis for terrestrial ecosystems and agriculture. It is also a key element change.
in land resource management. The critical scientific research areas in
the future are as follows: (1) mass and energy transportation in the soil 4.2.8. Disaster risk
and its stabilization mechanisms; (2) processes and impacts on the soil Disaster risk prevention, preparedness, mitigation, and relief are key
ecosystem; (3) response and feedback of soil to global changes; and (4) measures to build a safer world and achieve sustainable development.
sustainable management of soil and land resources. The future critical research areas of this direction include (1) formation
mechanisms of disasters among the earth spheres, and (2) dynamics of
4.2.5. Ecosystem processes and management natural disaster risk and their chain effects. Specifically, important re-
Climate change affects the structure, composition, and func- search topics include the mechanisms and prediction of earthquake dis-
tion of ecosystems (Holmgren and Hirota, 2013; Pederson, 2014; asters, the lithosphere-hydrosphere interaction, the mechanism of ma-
Doughty, 2015; Uriarte et al., 2016). The interactions among climate rine disasters, flood and drought disasters and their sphere of interac-
change, ecosystems, and human wellbeing are of great importance tion, climate change impacts on major natural disasters, mechanisms
(Liu, 2020). The following research areas for ecosystems should be con- and precursors of major geological disasters, and the mechanisms and
sidered in the future: (1) theoretical ecology; (2) strengthened regional risks of forest and grass fires. Predicting the risks of certain natural disas-
ecological research; and (3) socioecological systems. ters (e.g., earthquakes) is still difficult, and predictions should be made
based on sufficient knowledge about the formation mechanisms.
4.2.6. Remote sensing, geographic information science and technology
Remote sensing and geographic information science underpin the re- 4.2.9. Global and regional sustainable development
liable and timely observation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems from The complex human-environmental interactions with SDGs require
space, sky and ground (Guo, 2018; Li et al., 2019). Priority research ar- a transdisciplinary approach (Fu et al., 2019). The critical research ar-
eas for remote sensing, geographic information science and technology eas are (1) theories and methodologies for global sustainable develop-
are (1) theories and methods from the geographic information science; ment; (2) sustainable urbanization and rural revitalization; (3) trans-
(2) integration of geographic information systems; and (3) remote sens- formation and sustainable livelihoods of resource-based cities; and (4)
ing and modelling. environmental and development issues in typical river basins/regions. It

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is important to monitor and evaluate the interactions among sustainable scale research platforms, scientific research collaborations and scientific
development goals at the regional scale, establish regional sustainable and technological resources sharing.
development theories, develop mechanisms and evaluation systems, and Long-term observation sites and collaborative observation networks
clarify the main drivers and interactions of regional sustainable devel- are the basic scientific infrastructures. Various research sites in differ-
opment. ent regions should be integrated through top-level design and plan-
ning to establish a unified standard and system for research design, re-
5. Policy recommendations search methods, data monitoring and sharing, and possibly to incorpo-
rate space-sky-ground technologies and multiscale collaborative obser-
5.1. Funding systems vation networks.
It is necessary to construct big data platforms to encourage the appli-
Optimizing funding systems is essential to satisfy national needs cation of new technologies, the construction of observation and exper-
and solve bottleneck problems. Funding directions should be adjusted imental platforms, planning field stations in accordance with the char-
to research areas that are international research frontiers and major acteristics of each research field, the establishment of major national
national strategic needs, such as regional response and adaptation to projects, and the capability of original data collection.
global changes, ecological restoration of fragile regions, biodiversity and Coupled models and decision support platforms are indispensable
ecosystem services. tools that require continuous development. Major attention should be
Funding to support data platforms and organizational coordination given to creating a social-economic-natural coupled model and decision
should be strengthened. The collection of basic data and information support platform with intellectual property rights and the technology of
supports quantitative studies. A comprehensive platform involving es- grid-scale management, multisource big data integration, video recogni-
sential resources, including water, land, energy, and biodiversity, and tion and analysis, and the Internet of Things. These platforms will result
population, urbanization, industrial structure, and climate information, in an intelligent management of natural resources for regional ecologi-
is the foundation for Resources and Environmental Sciences. cal protection and environmental governance.
The systems evaluation should be improved to encourage innova- In addition, open data are very important in the data-sharing mech-
tion and credits. Fund evaluation mechanisms need to emphasize in- anism. The scientific platform in the future should enhance the acces-
novations and originality, increase support for potentially pioneering sibility to data towards the goal that scientists and non-scientists can
projects, and establish credit files to allow “error tolerance” in the final access all data. Meanwhile, standards should be established to protect
review of the outcomes. the interests of data producers (e.g., time embargo for data sharing) and
The funding structure needs to promote interdisciplinary and trans- ensure the shared quality of data.
disciplinary research. The funding system should have a clear position,
effective coordinated cooperation, and reasonable discipline classifica- 5.4. International cooperation
tion. It should also accept new funding sources such as private funding
and international cooperation to encourage interdisciplinary and trans- Policymakers, research institutions, universities, enterprise, and sci-
disciplinary research. entists should actively participate in dialogues and research on global
scientific issues. These global challenges faced by many countries are
also their main motivations to conduct international scientific and tech-
5.2. Talent cultivation nological cooperation on topics including sustainable development, food
security, energy and water resources, climate change, and poverty re-
A stable supporting mechanism for outstanding researchers at dif- duction. Many efforts are currently being undertaken by the United
ferent ages should be considered to stimulate explorative and innova- Nations (UN). However, the UN is unable to fully guide such compli-
tive research. Diversified, regional and international talent teams should cated programmes due to limitations in funding, scientific talent, local
be constructed. Regional talent funding can provide stable support for knowledge, and national support. A structure of multilateral coopera-
talent teams in critical regions and cooperative research with world- tion is required, such as the Alliance of International Science Organi-
class experts. Meanwhile, attention should be given to the training of zations (ANSO) (Chan et al., 2020), the Third Pole Environment (TPE)
application-oriented talent, the recruitment of talent in resource and en- plan (Yao et al., 2012), and the Global Dryland Ecosystem Programme
vironmental engineering areas, and the cultivation of supervisors with (Global-DEP) (Fu et al., 2021) initiated by China.
resource and environmental engineering experience. The area of international cooperative research projects should be
The policy system should focus on personnel training for technology expanded. Policymakers should promote multilateral cooperation pro-
development for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. It is grammes in Resources and Environmental Sciences by encouraging re-
recommended to build a funding system that targets resource and en- searchers to consider global environmental change issues and creating a
vironmental technology development and support personnel and form sound international environment in the context of future political multi-
technical support personnel teams. Special funding can be established polarization, and academic internationalization. Moreover, the strength-
to cultivate interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary scientific knowledge ening of international cooperation also includes switching from project-
for training through investing in basic education and construction of oriented to platform-oriented, initiating more international scientific co-
education bases. operation projects, actively seeking funding from international sources,
Moreover, it is recommended to build a think tank consisting of and providing more support for domestic scholars to lead or participate
high-level experts to provide timely guidance for evaluation processes, in the construction of multilateral collaboration platforms.
strengthening the performance evaluation of the national science and
technology plans. 6. Conclusions

5.3. Scientific platform Mankind faces a more crowded world, and the natural environment
faces increasing threats of environmental deterioration resulting from
It is necessary to establish data sharing mechanisms and research the continued growth of the global economy. The research of Resources
facilities, for example, by improving the current data sharing mecha- and Environmental Sciences is multidisciplinary and involves studies of
nisms and establishing large-scale instrument service centres and public geography, ecosystems, the environment, natural hazards, and sustain-
simulation laboratories. The construction of research infrastructures for able development. Evolutionary methods and techniques for research on
information and networking can support the building and use of large- resources and the environment enable us to have a more comprehensive

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