Supporting agencies: This special issue contains selected papers from the Symposium on Environmental Science and Engineering organized by the German-Mongolian Institute for Resources and Technology (GMIT) and the FAO workshop Forestry genetic resources, management and adaption to climate changes. The organizers of this thematic issue would like to thank the sponsors of the conferences for the funding, which was provided by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the Czech Development Agency in the framework of the project Development of Forests and the Gene Pool of Local Forest Tree Ecotypes in Mongolia 2015-18 (Grant no. CzDA-RO-MN-2014-6-31210), respectively. The special issue was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 17-29-05027)