Introduction

Abstract

The term “global change” was originally used to describe the phenomenon of decreasing the stability of the human social, economic, and political systems, especially declining international security and living standards. In the 1980s, natural scientists extended its meaning and used it to describe the changes in the Earth system at the global scale, caused by natural and human factors, mainly including global climate change and global environmental change. These kinds of global change are driven by external and internal influences on the planet. External driving forces mainly include solar activities, changes in the parameters of Earth’s orbit, and collisions with asteroids. Internal driving forces are mainly radioactivity and thermal energy generated from deep inside Earth. However, as human activities have intensified since the Industrial Revolution, population surge, economic development, and radical changes in land use have exerted a huge influence on the global environment. Therefore, human activities have become a major driving force of global change, and coupled with natural factors, they have been acting as a catalyst for global change processes.