Pursuing China's provincial sustainable development goals within a safe and just operating space: Past, present and future

Abstract

As emphasized by the challenging sustainable development agenda, countries are facing a complicated combination of environmental stress and social challenges, leading the Earth system towards an unsustainable path. Therefore, it is crucial to accurately assess past fluctuations contributing to current situations and apprehend plausible future implications. This study integrates safe and just operating space (SJOS) with Sustainable Development Goals to depict multiple “windows” of environmental and social evolution in different historical periods, with 31 provinces in China as a case study. Then, we track the spatiotemporal evolution trajectory of environmental performance and social well-being in each province from 2012 to 2021. The Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model is utilized to capture the temporal relationships between various indicators and to forecast the spatial trends of SJOS in the provinces from 2022 to 2030. Research findings indicate that: (1) over the 2012–2021 period, the environmental performance of the majority of provinces far exceeds the warning thresholds, with no province falling within all threshold boundaries simultaneously. The phosphorus cycle is the most challenging boundary, with only 6.8% of provinces within the safe boundary over the past 10 years. In comparison, freshwater use performs the best, with 80% of provinces staying within the threshold. (2) Social well-being generally improves across all provinces from 2012 to 2021, but the spatial and temporal trajectories are more varied. All provinces meet the thresholds for the food security and employment indicators. However, none of the provinces meet the standard for the social equity indicator. (3) Over the 2022–2030 projection period, environmental performance and social well-being trend in opposite directions across provinces. This culminates in no province being entirely within the safe and just space by 2030. Sanitation shows the most significant change compared to other indicators. Xinjiang had the largest improvement at 59.12%, while Tianjin had the most significant downward trend at 53.88%. Adjustments in national policies and priorities are essential if China wants to accomplish the sufficiency of biophysical resources whilst ensuring social equity in the access and exploitation of these resources.