Abstract:Ecological vulnerability has been highlighted in the studies of global change and sustainability in recent years, evolving from the mono-factorial assessment of ecological impacts to the integrated evaluation of the responses of regional human-environmental systems. The recent research focuses in the field consist of ecosystem dynamics, ecosystem sensitivity to and potential impacts of disturbances, and assessment of regional adaptation and stability. The methodologies involved include scenario simulation, ecological modeling, and capacity assessment through deliberately-designed appraisal index system. However, researchers have been challenged with uncertainties resulted from scenario simulation and ecological modeling, intangible relationships between adaptive capacity and social-economic development, and the lack of simultaneous efforts from environmental, ecological and social-economic aspects. Hence the further advances of the field should emphasize the multidisciplinary assessment of vulnerability by coupling and uncoupling ecological factors with social-economic driving forces, and strengthening empirical evidence in retrospect to historical information. The research of adaptability, the ultimate destination of vulnerability research, should focus on capacity-building and strategy optimization, the understanding of the relationship between the threshold of adaptation capacity and social-economic development, and the coordination of adaptability among competitive nations, regions and local stakeholder groups. Furthermore, an urgent need is to advance the research into the vulnerability of humankind′s confronting emergent natural disasters.