A research team from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has proposed a new ecosystem health framework to track long-term, consistent ecological changes across Asian drylands.

Based on the framework, the team found that ecosystem health across Asian drylands declined steadily until 2012, then partially recovered after 2014. Central Asia continued to degrade due to post‑2013 warming and rising soil moisture stress, while East Asian drylands experienced recovery driven by higher precipitation.

Led by Prof. ZENG Fanjiang and Associate Prof. Akash Tariq from XIEG, the study was published in Earth's Future on August 16.

A simplified conceptual schema of the research. (Image by XIEG)

Ecosystem health is a key indicator of land sustainability, yet long‑term regional assessments across Asian drylands have been fragmented and inconsistent over time. Previous studies have mostly examined individual components of the system, including climate variability, water resources, and vegetation dynamics, but have failed to capture continuous, year‑to‑year ecosystem dynamics.

This gap has hampered efforts to track progress, compare regional trends, and detect emerging ecological risks, especially as restoration and land degradation neutrality initiatives increasingly require spatially explicit and temporally consistent evidence.

To address this, the research team developed an integrated ecosystem health framework that enables annual tracking of ecosystem health across Asian drylands from 2000 to 2020. This approach combines land use, key biophysical indicators including vegetation dynamics and soil moisture, and landscape spatial configuration to provide a temporally consistent and spatially explicit assessment of ecosystem health dynamics.

The study reveals that ecosystem health across Asian drylands declined steadily until 2012, followed by a partial, spatially uneven recovery after 2014. Despite this improvement, poor ecosystem health areas expanded by 2.1% or 58 million hectares (Mha) since 2000, while healthy ecosystems declined and accounted for only 2% or 7.9 Mha of the region by 2020. By the end of the study period, areas classified as poor and relatively poor together comprised approximately 74% of the region.

(a) Longterm spatial trends (2000-2020) in ecosystem health (EH); (b) area share distribution by EH classes: P (Poor), RP (Relatively Poor), M (Moderate), RH (Relatively Healthy), H (Healthy). (Image by XIEG)

According to the researchers, a key finding of the study is the significant disparity between regions, with Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan, showing continued degradation throughout the study period with the lowest mean ecosystem health values, whereas Dryland East Asia, represented by China's Gansu, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia provinces, exhibited partial recovery.

Furthermore, the research identifies land-use change as the dominant driver, affecting 4.9% or 42.87 Mha of the region between 2000 and 2020. Climatic conditions further contributed to these drivers, as post-2013 warming coincided with increased soil moisture stress in Central Asia, while higher precipitation supported ecohealth recovery in East Asia drylands.

The study also proposes an ecosystem health-centered framework emphasizing prevention, adaptation, and restoration, supported by continuous monitoring, the researchers said.

"This framework not only provides a systematic academic paradigm but also offers clear decision-making support for regional land managers and international cooperation bodies," said Dr. Sikandar Ali from XIEG, first author of the study.

Through comprehensive integration of multi-source remote sensing data, the study details ecosystem health status and identifies dominant drivers of change, thereby furnishing robust data and theoretical support for land-use planning, restoration strategies, and sustainability policies across Asian drylands.

Gross proportion of regional land-use change (LUC) across Asian Drylands (AD), derived from dominant transition areas (2000-2020). (Image by XIEG)