The paper analyzes the distribution pattern of resources, ecological environment, society and economy, and holds that it is conducive to Silk Road countries to carry out Omni-directional and multi-level economic cooperation. Then the article puts forth main modes and paths of sustainable economic development for the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB): ecological civilization mode, regional economic integration mode, transportation economic belt mode and international tourism economic zone mode. Finally, the article summarizes the key scientific issues for the sustainable development in the SREB and puts forward several action projects which include establishing International Scientists League and Think Tanks, establishing international information sharing platform and scientific policy-making system of ecological environment and sustainable development of the SREB, starting international science cooperation and technology traineeship program of the SREB, founding the international cooperation committee in the SREB and founding transnational construction and win-win cooperation mechanism of coping with climate change and ecological environment.

Two model polygons in the Central Mongolia are considered for investigation of vegetation dynamics. They are located in rainless climatic zones — arid and semiarid. For the emphasized polygons plots of the NDVI temporal variation and NDVI maps of its multi-temporal values on the base of Landsat TM imagery are constructed. The full-scale landscape indication of the selected NDVI areas with different values with the step through 0.1 is conducted. This indication is supported by the analysis of vegetation to environmental groups for drought resistance. Almost the entire territory of the emphasized polygons vegetation digression during this period was traced. The analysis of the time variation of NDVI shows a decrease of its values. This indicates a trend xerophytization already sparse vegetation of Gobi. In the semiarid climatic zone a digression vegetation trend is directly related to heavy load on the pastures.

Plans for the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) include construction of two axes, two belts and two radiated areas. As a significant national strategy for China, the emphasis is on the construction of roads and achieving economic agglomeration and radiation through the construction of traffic axes. Using published literature and data analyses, this paper studied current traffic patterns between China and other regions within the SREB from the perspective of rail, ocean and air transportation. With regard to existing problems and development prospects of these three types of transportation, we propose construction modes for the traffic economic belt across continental plates and that future construction within the SREB should consider key cities as joints and arterial traffic lines as development axes, promote connecting of joints by lines, advance deep construction through joints and axes, connect lines into net, and develop informationalized traffic economic belt on the basis of trans-regional cooperation.

At present time two main problems for Caspian Sea are: level fluctuations and its ecological condition. Historically, the transgressions and regressions of the Caspian Sea influenced the regional living and production. Based on the geological, historical and archeological data, as well as the measured data, the geological and historical variability, yearly and seasonal changes, and short-term fluctuations are studied in this paper. In addition, this paper reviews two different methodologies that explain the reasons for the level fluctuations of the Caspian Sea. The results indicate that the Caspian Sea level changes should be considered as a multistage process, which is affected by geological factors, hydro-climatic factors and water balance, as well as anthropogenic factors, and the hydro-climatic changes are the dominant influence on the Caspian Sea level.

Taking America's implementing the Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy and China's building the Silk Road Belt as a backdrop, this research generalizes the basic concepts of geopolitics, geo-economy and geo-strategy, and then reviews the basic theories of geopolitics and its progress. Furthermore, based on the results of analyzing the features of changes of East Asia geopolitical environment, the paper summarizes the development trends of geopolitical environment of Sino-Mongolia and Sino-Russia, and considers that the geopolitical pattern and order of the South China Sea has been changed deeply with the strong involvement of USA. One of the most important changes is that China's interests are suffering stern challenge from Japan, Vietnam, Philippines and other countries. Afterwards, taking the energy market as an example, this research analyzes the impact of geopolitical changes of East Asia on the regional resources market. For China, the strategic conception of building the Silk Road Economic Belt is a countermeasure to counterbalance the adverse changing. At the same time, Russia was sanctioned by western countries and turned their eyes to Asia. So the stern geopolitical environment of both countries provides a good opportunity for China-Russia economic and trade cooperation. Because of the similar geopolitical situation and economic complementary, the energy cooperation between China and Russia is expected to be further enhanced in the future. Although Mongolia's economy relies heavily on China, its geopolitical strategic demand and strategic target have changed profoundly since the United States returns to Asia. The diplomatic priority of Mongolia is to strengthen exchanges with “the third neighbor” and to counterbalance its two neighbors’ influences. Though the Sino-Mongolia geopolitical relations are mainly positive, America's involvement increased the uncertainty of Sino-Mongolia resources cooperation. For Japan and Korea being America's allies, the harsh regional geopolitical environment will decrease their share of resources market in northeast Asia in the future.

The paper deals with current issues of the regional spatial organization based on the identification and analysis of key factors and prerequisites for the formation of urban agglomerations as the most important growth centers, integrated with global and regional markets in the conditions of a qualitatively new stage in the history of the Great Silk Road. We assess promising directions and negative effects of development of agglomerated formations and zones of their influence in the Republic of Kazakhstan as a region having an advantageous geostrategic position in the Eurasian space. In Kazakhstan, the current process of urbanization has a multiple-vector nature, and the course of formation of urban agglomerations provides convincing evidence of an increase in their share in settlement and in the total population. It is agglomerated forms of urban development that are a kind of indicator of the onset of maturity in settlement, specifying key points of the socio-economic space, namely: cores of regions, nodes of foreign economic relations and contacts, main areas of new territories development, the most important links in the internal infrastructure, etc. It is urban agglomerations that should act as a kind of special platform of integration processes, on the basis of which the Republic of Kazakhstan should revive its historical role in the development of the global project “New Silk Road” and become a major trade and logistics, finance and business, innovation and technology, and tourism hub of the Central Asia region, a bridge between Europe and Asia.

This article examines the impact of climate change on different ecosystems (boreal, tropical) APR on the territory of Russia, Mongolia, China, received in the course of research in key areas of investigated territory; provides a comparative analysis of the reaction of these ecosystems to global climate change. It is concluded, that there is some reaction of the forest ecosystem to climate change. This reaction is differently. It is noted the importance of socio-economic problems which have significant impact on ecosystems, along with climate change. Carried out researches allow to conclude, that it is necessary to investigate additionally how imposed climate-driven and direct human impacts to changes in forest and forest steppe ecosystems.

The role of the Trans-Siberian main railway is considered related to interaction between the West and the East of Eurasia. The stages of formation of a transport-economic belt along the Trans-Siberian main railway and its branches are distinguished. The main features of long-term development of the Trans-Siberian main railway, its new branches, and also the Russian mega project “Integrated Eurasian infrastructural system” are presented. The comparative characteristic of a zone of influence of the Trans-Siberian main railway and a New Silk Road in the People's Republic of China is given. General environmental issues in the development of transcontinental Eurasian transport-economic belts are singled out. The authors believe that despite some competition to the Trans-Siberian Main Railway in the Eurasian transport transit, realization of the New Silk Road project will bring obvious socio-economic and environmental benefits for participating countries through formation of the zone of the sustainable development along this transport corridor. Finally, it will undoubtedly contribute to achievement of closer economic integration and greater security in Eurasia.

The Great Silk Road is a trade route linking the East and West which gave impetus to the development of ancient society, and Kazakhstan is the heart of the trade route. At the initial stage, intensive transaction of goods took place between the West and East through The Great Silk Road. This paper reviewed the history of development of the Silk Road and suggested that today to construct the “New Silk Road”, Kazakhstan should face many issues, and take many steps to become a Eurasian hub through taking full of advantages. Above all, developing mechanisms of integration and sustainable development is our urgent need.

Cyclic climatic changes, as well as the press of anthropogenic impact, affect ecosystems of the river Argun basin. Specialization of basin management is industrial and agricultural. The main impact is connected with the development of mining companies (including the mining of ore and placer gold), energy facilities, and the formation of reservoirs in the basin of rivers: the Argun — the Hailar. As a result of natural and anthropogenic pressure, the limiting factor for ecosystem exploitation in this basin is water resources (water deficiency and its quality).