This One Earth Research Article shows how increasing urbanization & land use change is contributing to warmer temperatures at regional and continental scales. The results have important implications regarding the need for climate mitigation and adaptation (SDG 13), urban planning (SDG 11) and the terrestrial biosphere (SDG 15).

This article focuses on numerous plot, field, and regional scale studies conducted in the Critical Zone Observatories (CZO) facilities distributed across the China Loess Plateau (CLP). The CLP CZO features the world's largest and deepest loess deposits, highly disturbed by human activities, and consists of a longitudinal series of monitoring sites.

This knowledge encompasses information about the local environment, including farming patterns, soil types, weather patterns, and other natural resources. Such indigenous agricultural practices are valuable methods, and these communities have illustrated the effectiveness, adaptability, and ways in which these adopted methods promote sustainable environmental management.

Findings relating to the level of awareness of agricultural radio programmes in the three selected states show that more farmers in Nasarawa State are aware of agricultural programmes than those from the other states.

This chapter ties into Sustainable Development Goal 11, Sustainable Development Goal 12, and Sustainable Development Goal 13 by focusing on designing sustainable waste management systems for smart cities, which enhances urban sustainability and resilience, by discussing AI-based waste management systems that optimize recycling, resource recovery, and efficient waste handling, promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, and by exploring AI’s role in carbon emission assessment and energy transition processes, contributing to efforts to combat climate change and its impacts.

This case study illustrates how the effects of climate change at locations remote from the city could impact resilience of urban communities in multiple ways through cascading effects through the food-water-energy nexus.