Research framework for integrated geography: Composite driving–system evolution–coupling mechanism–synergistic regulation

Abstract

Amid ongoing global environmental change and the critical pursuit of sustainable development, human–environment systems are exhibiting increasingly complex dynamic evolutions and spatial relationships, underscoring an urgent need for innovative research frameworks. Integrated geography synthesizes physical geography, human geography, and geographic information science, providing key frameworks for understanding complex human–environment systems. This editorial proposes an emerging research framework for integrated geography—“Composite driving–System evolution–Coupling mechanism–Synergistic regulation (CSCS)”—based on key issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, resource scarcity, and social–ecological interactions, which have been highlighted in both recent critical literature on human–environment systems and UN assessment reports. The framework starts with diverse composite driving forces, extends to the evolution of human–environment system structures, processes, and functions that these drivers induce, explores couplings within human–environment systems, and calls for regulation aimed at sustainable development in synergies. Major research frontiers include understanding the cascading “evolution–coupling” effects of shocks; measuring system resilience, thresholds, and safe and just operating space boundaries; clarifying linkage mechanisms across scales; and achieving synergistic outcomes for multi-objective sustainability. This framework will help promote the interdisciplinary integration and development of integrated geography, and provide geographical solutions for the global sustainable development agenda.

Keywords

• Integrated geography
• Driving
• Evolution
• Coupling
• Regulation
• Human–environment system