Fledging Critical Zone Science for Environmental Sustainability

In the Anthropocene, humans face increasing challenges of sustainability from local to global scales. Responding to these challenges, the UN released 17 sustainable development goals and their related 169 targets up to 2030 with the key objective of protecting the planet and the long-term strong sustainability of coupled human and natural systems. The criticality of the critical zone science stressed by the National Research Council lies in the functionality of the critical zone to sustain life and thus the well-being of the human society.