Understanding the ecology and sustainability of the Inner Mongolian Grassland is crucial for improving land management policies in the Mongolian Plateau and beyond. However, a systematic and comprehensive review of the relevant literature is still lacking. This review was intended to: (1) assess the current state of the ecological and sustainability research of the Inner Mongolian Grassland region, and (2) identify critical research topics and challenges for understanding pathways to sustainability of the region. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of 2571 English articles indexed in the Web of Science during 1998–2019. Multiple methods, including descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, change point detection, theme mining, and association strength analysis, were combined to analyze the sampled literature. All reviewed studies can be grouped into four types: description of ecological and biogeochemical characteristics of degraded grasslands (type I), the impacts of climate change and human activities on aboveground (type II) and belowground grassland ecosystem functioning (type III), and the impacts of different management strategies on grassland ecosystem services and human well-being (type IV). The number of publications in all four themes has rapidly increased after 2007–2009. The four types of articles were related to each other in terms of the interannual publication consistency. Keyword co-occurrence network analysis showed that climate change and grazing were the major research topics, which are closely related to all other topics. Three perspectives have persisted in the ecology and sustainability research of the Inner Mongolian Grassland: Ecology in the Grassland, Ecology of the Grassland, and Sustainability of the Grassland. Based on the emerging landscape sustainability science framework, the transdisciplinary approach to landscape sustainability diagnostics and landscape planning and design should become a priority in advancing sustainability research of the region.

中文翻译：

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内蒙古草原生态与可持续发展：回顾与前行

了解内蒙古草原的生态和可持续性对于改善蒙古高原及其他地区的土地管理政策至关重要。然而，目前还缺乏对相关文献的系统、全面的回顾。本综述旨在：(1) 评估内蒙古草原地区生态和可持续性研究的现状，以及 (2) 确定理解该地区可持续性途径的关键研究课题和挑战。我们对 1998-2019 年在 Web of Science 中编入索引的 2571 篇英文文章进行了文献计量分析。结合描述性统计、主成分分析、变化点检测、主题挖掘、关联强度分析等多种方法对样本文献进行分析。所有审查的研究可分为四类：退化草地的生态和生物地球化学特征描述（I 类），气候变化和人类活动对地上（II 类）和地下草地生态系统功能的影响（III 类），以及不同管理策略对草地生态系统服务和人类福祉的影响（IV 类）。所有四个主题的出版物数量在 2007-2009 年之后迅速增加。4类文章在年际发表一致性方面相互关联。关键词共现网络分析表明，气候变化和放牧是主要研究课题，与所有其他课题密切相关。内蒙古草原生态与可持续性研究坚持三个观点：草原生态学、草原生态学和草原可持续发展。基于新兴的景观可持续性科学框架，景观可持续性诊断和景观规划与设计的跨学科方法应成为推进该地区可持续性研究的优先事项。