The Three Poles of the Earth: Challenges to Sustainable Development in Fragile Environments

The book summarizes the latest research achievements of the "CAS Earth Poles: Big Data for the Three Poles" project in actively responding to the United Nations' sustainable development goals (SDGs). The book covers six aspects: projections of future climate change in polar regions, assessment and response to climate-related cryospheric disasters, land water resource and terrestrial ecological environments in polar regions, marine environmental changes, the SDG big data platform, and big data products that support sustainable development. The book emphasizes the critical role of Earth's three poles in achieving global sustainable development, and identifies current shortcomings, and outlines major challenges. However, the book provides a comprehensive review of scientific actions and the latest research progress toward achieving SDGs at Earth’s three poles. Furthermore, the book introduces the three-pole big data platform and data products that support calculations and assessments for polar SDGs. Finally, the book offers recommendations for revising SDGs and indicators specific to the three-pole regions, and discusses pathways to achieve sustainable development in these regions. Ultimately, the book aims to address the gaps between polar sustainable development and the United Nations' SDGs, ensuring that the sustainable development of the Earth’s three poles keeps pace with global efforts.

Xin Li is currently a professor and deputy director at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and holds the position of director at the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center at ITP/CAS. His primary research focuses on land data assimilation, remote sensing, and integrated modeling of hydrological and cryospheric processes at the river basin scale. Dr. Li earned the B.S. degree in GIS and Cartography from Nanjing University in 1992 and the Ph.D. degree in Remote Sensing and GIS from CAS in 1998. He was a member of WCRP GEWEX (World Climate Research Programme/ The Global Energy and Water Exchanges) scientific steering committee and is presently a member of the International Science Advisory Panel of Global Water Futures programme. Dr. Li also serves on the editorial boards of Science Bulletin, Science China Earth Science, Journal of Hydrology, Vadose Zone Journal, Remote Sensing, Big Earth Data, and other international journals. He has published over 500 journal articles and coauthored 10 books. The total citations of Dr. Li’s publications exceed 31,000, with h-indexes of 89+. Dr. Li is the lead scientist of WATER (Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research, 2007-2010) and HiWATER (Heihe Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research, 2012-2017), which are two comprehensive remote sensing ecohydrology experiments conducted sequentially in recent years in China. Currently, he has led the “CASEarth Poles: Big Data for the Three Poles” Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has been a recipient of the First-Class Natural Science Prize and the First-Class Science and Technology Progress Prize of Gansu Province, and the Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize of the CAS.

Anmin Duan is a distinguished professor at Xiamen University since 2021, the leader of Center for Marine Meteorology and Climate Change, Xiamen University since 2023, and a recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. He served at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2003 to 2021. He holds positions as a distinguished researcher at the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, a member of the Chinese Committee for the Global Energy and Water Exchanges Project (GEWEX), a member of the Chinese Committee for Future Earth, and an executive member of China Society on Tibetan Plateau. He has received awards such as the Zhao Jiuzhang Outstanding Young Scientist Award. His research primarily focuses on the meteorology of the Tibetan Plateau, land-air-sea interactions in the Asian monsoon region, and climate change. He systematically studies and summarizes the physical conceptual model of the interaction between the atmospheric heat source of the Tibetan Plateau and global sea temperatures and their synergistic impact on the variability of the East Asian summer monsoon. His research reveals several new climate teleconnections among the Earth’s three poles. He has led major projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, including key projects, international collaboration projects, general projects, and a Category A project under the Chinese Academy of Sciences Pilot Program on "Multi-layered Interactions within the Three-Pole Climate System".

Donghui Shangguan is a professor at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, mainly engaged in the research of glacier resources, glacier disasters, and hydrology in cold regions. He is a member of GLIMS (Global land ice measurements from space), Vice President of the Gansu Provincial Geographical Society, and editorial board member of the Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology. He participated in the 21st Century Climate Center project of the Ministry of Science and Technology: Report on the Impact Assessment of Glacier melting on the Economic and Social Development of the arid areas in Northwest China and its adaptation Strategy, and wrote related reports. His achievements include: Using remote sensing data and the first glacier inventory data, he investigated the change characteristics of the glaciers in Tarim River in recent 40 years, revealed the response characteristics of the glacier changes in Tarim River to climate change, and found that there are surging glaciers in the Karakoram Mountains, which provides data basis for the sudden glacier flood in the study area. Furthermore, he used GPS-RTK to investigate the change of 17 glacier surface elevations for the first time in Qilian Mountain, Gongge Mountain, Tianshan Bogda, and Tianshan Tomur and the status quo of glacier lake and glacier terminal lake. A method of extracting glacial lake area parameters based on an environmental disaster satellite was developed, and an early warning model of glacial lake outburst index was proposed, which was successfully applied to the sudden flood warning of glacial lake in the upper reaches of Aksu River. More than 80 papers have been published in GRL, Cryosphere, Journal of Glaciology, and other journals, 50 of which have been included in SCI/EI.

Lei Wang is now a full professor and group leader at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His current research is focused on climate change and water cycle over the Third Pole region, for an improved predictability of regional water resources and water-related disasters.

Chaolun Li is presently a professor and the director of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His primary research focuses on the marine ecology of China’s coastal areas, polar regions, and the deep-sea. He has studied marine ecosystems in polar regions for over 30 years, and has worked in both the Arctic and Southern Oceans. His research career started with a PhD studying the feeding of dominant zooplankton species in a variety of marine environments including the Southern Ocean. He has worked at the University of Tromso (now the Arctic University of Norway) and the University of Connecticut as a visiting scientist. His main research themes in the Southern Ocean include feeding strategies of dominant zooplankton species, zooplankton community structure and diversity, the influence of zooplankton on carbon flux of the high latitude region, and long-term dynamics of dominant zooplankton species and community. With over 160 papers, his research has been widely disseminated and cited.

Tao Che is a professor at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the header of the Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science Research Laboratory, winner of the Distinguished Young Scholars Fund, and. He is also the director of the Heihe Remote Sensing Experimental Research Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has been engaged in snow remote sensing research for a long time, and his main academic achievements include: (1) conducting long-term snowfield observations in the three major snowfall areas of China, establishing the first comprehensive snow observation station in China in the Qilian Mountains, leading the snow team to carry out ground surveys of snow, and obtaining the characteristics and distribution of snow in China; (2) developing microwave remote sensing algorithms suitable for the characteristics of Chinese snow, being the first to propose dynamic remote sensing algorithms with snow characteristics as a priori information, and conducting innovative research on the low accuracy of snow remote sensing in complex environments such as mountainous and forested areas; (3) developing long time series of snow depth remote sensing products in China, which have been downloaded by domestic and foreign scholars more than 1,300 times and widely applied in the fields of climate change, hydrology and water resources, and disaster studies. He has published more than 100 academic papers, co-authored 10 monographs, formulated 2 national standards, and obtained 4 national invention patents. He was awarded the First-Class Science and Technology Progress Prize of Gansu Province and the First-Class Prize for surveying and mapping technology progress.

Xinwu Li is currently a professor/doctoral supervisor at the International Research Center for Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS) and Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (AIRCAS). His research interests include microwave remote sensing, glacier hydrology remote sensing, and vegetation ecological remote sensing. A series of high-level achievements in the fields of interferometric SAR, tomographic SAR, and ultra-high resolution SAR information processing and environmental parameter estimation methods and applications, the remote sensing comparison and correlation scientific cognition of hydrology and vegetation ecological environment of the earth's three polar glaciers, and the global forest ecological remote sensing model and method and information service platform system have been achieved. He has published 175 papers in journals such as National Science Review, The Innovation, Science Bulletin, TGRS, and BAMES, among which 76 are SCI papers (47 are first author/correspondence). Co-author six books: "The Cryospheric Remote Sensing", "New generation SAR for Earth Environment Observation" (Chinese and English versions), "The Three Poles of the Earth: Global Change Outposts, Earth's Three Poles: Challenges to Sustainable Development in Fragile Environments, Global Change Science Satellite and Remote Sensing Time Series: Revealing Land Surface Dynamics; The related achievements have won the United Nations Global Pulse Award and Beijing Science and Technology Award (Basic category). He is currently a Member of the China-EU Expert Committee on Land and Soil (SEPLS), the Co-Chairman of the Working Group on Environmental Change of the DBAR International Scientific Program (DBAR-ENVI), and the Vice Chairman of the Digital Polar Expert Committee of the ISDE Chinese National Committee. Vice Chairman of the CARSA Ecological Meteorological Remote Sensing Committee and a standing member of the Radar Remote Sensing Committee of China Remote Sensing Application Association.

Rui Jin is a professor at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and holds the position of deputy director of the Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science Research Laboratory. Her primary research focuses on remote sensing of cryosphere, remote sensing of hydrology, land data assimilation, as well as the validation of quantitative remote sensing products. Dr. Jin earned the B.S. degree in Cartography and GIS from Northwest University in 1997 and the Ph.D. degree in Remote Sensing and GIS from CAS in 2007. She has published over 100 journal articles and coauthored 3 books, formulated 1 national standard (GB/T 40039-2021), The total citations of Dr. Jin’s publications exceed 5,800, with h-indexes of 38. Dr. Jin is also a member of Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS, and holds positions as a distinguished researcher at the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals. She won the First-Class Science and Technology Progress Prize of Gansu Province and the First-Class Prize in surveying and mapping technology progress.

Youhua Ran is currently a professor at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and holds a position as a distinguished researcher at the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals. His primary research focuses on remote sensing big data analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence for detecting the distribution, and changes of permafrost, and related hydrological, ecological, and social impacts. Dr. Ran earned the B.S. degree in Management from Lanzhou University in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in Remote Sensing and GIS from CAS in 2017. He was a member of the Digital Mountain Committee of Chinese National Committee of International Society for Digital Earth. Dr. Ran also serves on the editorial boards of Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology, and other journals. He has published over 100 journal articles and coauthored 4 books. The total citations of Dr. Ran's publications exceed 5,000.