Coupling environmental evolution and social developments in east silk road during past 2000 years

The silk road was a transcontinental network of trader routes formally established during the han dynasty of china, which connecting the east and weast recently, it has been rejvenated as the chinese lasder jinping Xi proposed the belt and road initative a develpment strategy and framework that focused on connevtivity and cooperation among countries primarily between the china and the rest of eurasia. passing through the environmental vulnerable arid and semi- arid northwest china, the east silk road and suroundings experienced several episodes of prosperity or decline responding to climatic variations and human acitvities . it suffered from water scarcity, glacial retreat permafrost degradation, lake shrink, desett expansion and severe soil erosion during the past 2.000 year, which severely constrained the reginal social and econmic development. this study firstly reviews the history of regional climate change, social develompent rise and decline of the silk road, then couples environment evolution and social development during the past 2.000 years, finaly draws implications for further ecological restoration and social develpment. the main conclusiaons are as following.