PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2015, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (1): 1-9.doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2015.01.001

• Future Earth and Geography Research •     Next Articles

Trend of human-economic geography in relation to the Future Earth initiative for systemic solutions of regional sustainable development

FAN Jie1,2, JIANG Zilong1,2,3   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
    2. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
    3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2014-12-01 Revised:2015-01-01 Online:2015-01-25 Published:2015-01-25
  • About author:10.11820/dlkxjz.2015.01.001

Abstract: Future Earth initiative puts forward the academic thought, top-level design, core content, and methodology for systemic solutions of regional sustainable development, which provides a reference for future research of regional sustainable development in human-economic geography. Based on an analysis of the core concepts of Future Earth, this article elaborates the development opportunities and positioning of human-economic geography, and discusses the five grand challenges of Future Earth and their implications for exploring systemic solutions of regional sustainable development. It maintains that progress in the study of each of these challenges is essential to overall solve the problem of global sustainable development. This article also discusses the objective, perspective, and path of regional sustainable development system, and analyzes the academic thought of systemic solutions for regional sustainable development from the applied basic research and application practice. Using the Future Earth research initiative as a reference and based on the research framework of the regional sustainable development system, it examines the future development of human-economic geography from the three aspects of improving the ability of prediction and assessment, applied research on regulatory process and controlling mode, and institutional design with respect to Future Earth.

Key words: earth system science, Future Earth, human-economic geography, region, sustainable development, systemic solution