Bringing ancient loess critical zones into a new era of sustainable development goals

Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) have been established initially in natural environments to monitor CZ processes. A new generation of CZOs has been extended to human-modified landscapes to address the impacts of climate change and human-caused actions such as erosion, droughts, floods, and water resource pollution. This review focuses on numerous plot, field, and regional scale studies conducted in the 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 observation system consists of plot, slope, watershed, and regional observatories and is promoted by large-scale comprehensive experiments to achieve multiscale observations. Deep soil boreholes, hydro-geophysical tools, multiple tracers-based techniques, proximal and remote sensing techniques, and automatic monitoring equipment are implemented to monitor CZ processes. Observation and modeling of critical hydrological and biogeochemical processes (e.g., water, nutrients, carbon, and microbial activities) in land surface and deep loess deposits across CLP CZOs have unveiled crucial insights into human-environment interactions and sustainability challenges. Large-scale ecological efforts such as revegetation and engineering such as check dam construction have effectively mitigated flood and soil erosion while enhancing deep soil carbon sequestration. However, these interventions can yield both benefits and drawbacks, impacting deep soil water, groundwater recharge, and agricultural production. Converting arable cropland to orchards for increased income has raised nitrate accumulation in the deep vadose zone, posing a risk of groundwater pollution. These findings, combined with the CZ data, have identified knowledge exchange opportunities to unravel diverse factors within the relations of agriculture, ecosystem, and environment. These could directly improve local livelihoods and eco-environmental conditions by optimizing land use and management practices, increasing water use efficiency, and reducing fertilizer application. These efforts contribute towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and environmental policies. Overall, studies within the CLP have provided significant scientific advancements and guidance on managing CZ processes and services with regional SDGs, that may be transferable to other highly disturbed regions of the world.