Integrating cross-scale sustainability and ecosystem resilience for adaptative scenario planning in China

Climate change calls for adaptive strategies to manage landscapes across governance levels, as differing policy frameworks distinctly shape landscape patterns and long-term ecosystem resilience. This study presents a novel adaptive framework that integrates planning objectives, landscape patterns, and ecosystem resilience through iterative feedback loops. The framework aims to achieve the desired scenario, SUS-RES, which balances sustainable planning objectives across national, provincial, and local levels while maintaining ecosystem resilience in a changing climate. The framework was applied to the Huangshui River Basin on China’s Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a region facing significant challenges from climate change and human activities. By integrating the CLUMondo and LPJ-GUESS models, we compared SUS-RES with scenarios focusing on national (NAT), provincial (PRO), and local (LOC) governance priorities. The analysis revealed considerable mismatches in management goals across governance levels within the same socio-ecological system, emphasizing the necessity of cross-scale coordination to align planning objectives with ecosystem resilience. This study offers a practical framework for adaptive governance under global climate change, providing valuable insights into the intricate dynamics of resilience, sustainability, and governance authority in socio-ecological systems during the Anthropocene.