An Evidence-Informed Framework for Practice-Oriented Geographical Fieldwork Education: Lessons from Environmental Analysis and Resource Assessment of China’s Eight Major Deserts

Drawing on ERA5 reanalysis data for 2005–2025, this study examines long-term environmental change across China’s eight major deserts and on this basis develops a data-informed framework for integrating geoscientific evidence into geographical fieldwork education. Temperature change, surface radiation and vertical soil moisture profiles are used to construct inquiry tasks on regional warming, land–atmosphere interactions and dryland hydrology. A four-dimensional resource assessment integrating solar resource abundance, thermal stability, soil moisture support and wind exposure stability is then applied using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to compare relative resource characteristics and ecological constraints across desert regions. The contrasting resource profiles of the Taklimakan, Tengger, and Kubuqi Deserts provide the basis for a scenario-based decision-making activity incorporating equal-weight, energy-priority, and ecology-priority perspectives on renewable energy development and ecological protection. Rather than treating deserts as static landscapes, the proposed framework positions them as dynamic coupled human–environment systems and is designed to engage students in interpreting long-term datasets, comparing regional processes and evaluating sustainability trade-offs. The study illustrates how environmental datasets can be organised into fieldwork questions, analytical tasks and decision scenarios, offering an adaptable framework in which quantitative reasoning, systems thinking and evidence-based sustainability learning are specified as intended educational outcomes in higher geographical education.