The "Green Belt and Road Initiative" (GBRI) is China's international cooperation strategy aimed at expanding international collaborations between China, Asia, and Europe through regional trade, policy dialogue, and cultural exchange in order to promote the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Identifying the development characteristics and deficiencies of Belt and Road countries is critical to investment and policymaking decisions. Here, we incorporated progress evenness across SDGs based on biodiversity measurements to establish a comprehensive assessment system and evaluated the sustainable development status and trajectory of Belt and Road countries from 2017 to 2021. Our results suggest that, although most countries have experienced progress toward SDGs, disregarding evenness among goals tended to result in the overestimation of the current achievements and ignore regional gaps. Economically developed member countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) were more successful in achieving SDGs, but they also faced development bottlenecks owing to uneven development among the 17 goals, with particular shortcomings in goals related to climate actions. However, many countries with relatively poor economies, mostly in Central and Southeast Asia, performed well on eco-environment-related SDGs. Therefore, complementary collaboration among countries may provide a green development pathway to rapidly promote the achievement of SDGs in the Belt and Road region, which emphasizes the urgency and potential for the GBRI. In essence, while uneven development is a tremendous challenge for Belt and Road countries, it presents an opportunity to enhance regional cooperation in support of the GBRI.

Water stress is a major challenge present in drylands and it generally leads to an uneven progress in social, economic, and natural systems. However, its impact on the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in drylands remains unclear. By establishing a comprehensive assessment system incorporating SDGs progress evenness, this study has assessed water stress and its impact on sustainable development in Inner Mongolia, a typical and representative area of Eurasian drylands. Our results suggest that although Inner Mongolia has experienced rapid progress towards its SDGs, disregarding the evenness of SDGs progress overestimates the current situation and ignores regional gaps. Many poorly performing SDGs have made little progress over the past few decades, thus intensifying uneven progress goals. Further analyses have examined how water resources are associated with these problems. Moreover, multiple SDGs related to human essential needs and environmental conservation, including SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), were significantly positively correlated with ecological water consumption, whereas SDGs related to economic growth, such as SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), were positively correlated with industrial water consumption. These findings suggest that a conflict in water allocation for the achievement of different SDGs accounts for the uneven progress across the SDGs and therefore this impedes the sustainable development of these drylands. Therefore, we argue that industrial upgrading, regional planning, and management policies should be integrated into a single unified framework from an SDGs perspective to relieve water stress, thus promoting sustainable development in drylands.

作为我国重要的生态屏障和经济带,黄河流域生态保护和高质量发展是我国的重大战略需求.目前,黄河流域水资源利用效率较低、水资源配置不甚合理等问题,阻碍了流域整体的可持续发展.以黄河流域上、中、下游9个省份作为研究对象,引入目标间均衡度这一新的评估方法,通过分析上中下游在可持续发展目标达成状况、发展路径、对黄河水资源的依赖程度和工农业用水效率等方面的差异,探讨了基于水资源优化利用的协同发展策略.研究结果表明:(1)2000-2015年间,黄河九省的可持续发展指数都有了显著提高,在不考虑各可持续发展目标间的均衡度时,中下游地区的可持续发展状况显著优于上游地区,考虑均衡度后则未发现显著差异;(2)忽略均衡度对评估结果带来的偏差也体现在省级层面上,如宁夏和山西在不考虑均衡度时都被认为取得了良好的发展,但实际上两者的发展主要体现在少部分目标上,和环境保护相关的部分目标反而出现了退步,这说明不考虑均衡度可能会高估可持续发展目标达成度;(3)黄河流域上中下游均有对黄河水资源较为依赖的省份,这些省份间工农业用水量和用水效率等存在较大差异,总体来看,上游地区用水效率较低,中下游地区用水效率较高;(4)取水量与17个可持续发展目标间的关系在上中下游有所差异,在上游地区取水量同多数目标无关或呈负相关关系,说明限制上游地区可持续发展的因素不是水资源,而在中下游地区取水量的增加则能够促进一些同经济和社会发展相关的目标.可以通过加强上、中、下游间的合作,优化产业结构和水资源配置,提高流域整体的水资源利用效率,促进流域生态环境保护,最终实现全流域的可持续发展.

草地是中国面积最大的陆地生态系统,其在保障国家“大粮食”安全生产、遏制气候变化、维持生物多样性、涵养水源、促进可持续社区建设等人类可持续发展目标中具有极其重要的价值.由人类活动和气候变化导致的草地生态系统服务能力衰退、生态功能降低,严重威胁着中国生态经济安全,而问题的产生原因和解决办法又要回归于草地生态系统本身.因此,需要明晰草地生态系统多功能性和多重服务与可持续发展目标的关系,科学研判家畜管理对可持续发展目标的重要作用.据此文章提出4条保障措施支撑未来草地健康发展,为实现全球可持续发展目标贡献中国智慧提供路径选择.