Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience.

Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge in time when research projects are short-term and potential impacts are long-term; and (iii) scaling up knowledge across space, from local research sites to larger-scale or even global impact. Some potential pathways for funding agencies to overcome these challenges include providing targeted prolonged funding for dissemination and outreach, and facilitating collaboration and coordination across different sites, research teams, and partner organizations. By systematically documenting these challenges, we hope to pave the way for further innovations in the research cycle.

Datasets of drought and flood impact on croplands in Southeast Asia from 1980 to 2019.

Data on droughts and floods and their impacts on croplands and production are important for policy makers and the scientific community. This dataset was developed to provide data of the impacts of droughts and floods on agriculture in the Monsoon Climate Region and Equatorial Climate Region of Southeast Asia during the crop growing seasons over a 40-year period between 1980 and 2019. The data were generated using the TerraClimate global high-resolution gridded Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) datasets in Google Earth Engine along with a set of algorithms. Datasets were available on 47,192 grid points of a 10 × 10 km resolution containing PDSI, their latitude longitude between 1980 and 2019 with five years interval, monthly temporal PDSI data, cropland drought and flood intensity data between 1980 and 2019.

Impacts of droughts and floods on croplands and crop production in Southeast Asia - An application of Google Earth Engine.

While droughts and floods have intensified in recent years, only a handful of studies have assessed their impacts on croplands and production in Southeast Asia. Here, we used the Google Earth Engine to assess the droughts and floods and their impacts on croplands and crop production over 40 years from 1980 to 2019. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) as the basis for determining the drought and flood levels, and crop damage levels, crop production loss in both the Monsoon Climate Region (MCR) and the Equatorial Climate Region (ECR) of Southeast Asia was assessed over 47,192 grid points with 10 × 10-kilometer resolution. We found that rainfed crops were severely affected by droughts in the MCR and floods in the ECR. About 9.42 million ha and 3.72 million ha of cropland was damaged by droughts and floods, respectively. We estimated a total loss of 20.64 million tons of crop production between 2015 and 2019. Rainfed crops in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar were strongly affected by droughts, whereas Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia were more affected by floods over the same period. Accordingly, four levels of policy interventions were prioritized by considering the geolocated crop damage levels.