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 a